Maybe this was not mentioned because as "newbie", students aren't really learning these subtleties; but you can't make real progress in Chinese unless you know that characters can have alternative readings that can be completely unrelated.

Yes, it's common for city names to end with 州, because 州 means 'state'. 广州/guang3 zhou1, 苏州/su1 zhou1, 杭州/hang2 zhou1 just to name a few famous ones. Of course they are not a state, but it probably evolved from how geography and territory were defined back in the days. We also refer to American states as 州，e.g. 纽约州/niu3 yue1 zhou1/ the state of New York.

Prior to the introduction of Hanyu Pinyin, the province was known as Kwangtung Province. One should note that Canton, though etymologically derived from a Portuguese transliteration of "Guangdong", only refers to the provincial capital instead of the whole province, as documented by authoritative English dictionaries. The local people of the city of Canton and their language are still commonly referred to as Cantonese. Because of the prestige of Canton and its accent, Cantonese sensu lato can also be used for the phylogenetically related residents and Chinese dialects outside the provincial capital.

The Shanghai dialect sounds really Japanese. Speaking of Cantonese...I really want to learn it!! I meet way more Cantonese speakers in the US than Mandarin speakers. Plus it sounds cooler

I wouldn't say the Shanghai dialect is going extinct, but it's definitely going through a decline largely due to demographic changes. Now about 30% of people living in Shangai are not native of the city. They of course don't speak the dialect. There are attempts to preserve the language, e.g. increased media content in Shanghainese (most of which are comedy skits, talk shows, etc). But it's something done with caution and restraint since preserving Shanghai dialect could send the wrong message of 'us' and 'them'. It's a sensitive issue in Shanghai given the city's snobby tendency. Even the word 外地人/wai4 di4 ren2/non-locals can be edited out or blocked by cyber nannies.

My personal opinion is that cantonese sounds pretty cool but after watching the local news and dealing with people on a daily basis it becomes gratingly irritating . Maybe I am completely wrong but even the simplest things that do not require any sort of emotion require people to say things in contorted patterns. Everything seems to be overly exaggerated.

In my observations the people in Guangzhou speak way differently than people in Hong Kong or even cities that are in the surrounding area. I have lived in Huizhou, and spent a lot of time in Dongguan and Shenzhen. And locals from these cities do not seem to have the same thick accent.

Someone tell me if I am completely mis-guided.