Shek O Beachside Village
Lan Kwai Fong Nightlife
Dim Sum Brunch
Afternoon Tea at The Peninsula
Chapter 2
Central
Hong Kong Island
Kowloon
The New Territories
The Outer Islands
Macau
The Mainland
Chapter 3
Top Hotels
Best Food & Restaurants
Best Shopping
Hippest Nightspots
Best Kid-friendly Activities
Best Museums & Art Galleries
Best Nature Walks
HONG KONG MAP
Hong Kong Map Index
Hong Kong at a Glance
Geography
Located to the southeast of Mainland China adjoining the province of Guangdong, with the Pearl River delta to the west and the South China Sea to the east, Hong Kong covers 1,104 sq km, 40% of which is country park and nature reserves. It consists of Hong Kong Island, the Kowloon Peninsula and the New Territories, which includes 262 outlying islands. Less than 25% of Hong Kong land is developed.
Climate
With a subtropical climate, temperatures can drop below 10 degrees Celsius in winter and top 31 degrees Celsius in summer. It is hot, humid and rainy from spring to summer, cool and dry in winter, and warm, sunny and dry in autumn. Average annual rainfall is 2,180 mm, and the driest month is January.
People
At the start of 2012, Hong Kong was home to approximately 7.1 million residents, with a population density of 6,480 people per sq km. Roughly 95% of Hong Kongers are ethnic Chinese, though there are also substantial numbers of Indonesians (148,000), Filipinos (141,000) and Thais (28,000).
Language
Cantonese, Mandarin and English are the official spoken languages of Hong Kong, while Chinese (traditional) and English are the official written languages. English is the language of legal, finance and business sectors. Cantonese speakers make up 89% of the population, Putonghua speakers 1.1%, other Chinese dialect speakers 5.8%, English speakers 3.1% and other language speakers 1.3%.
Economy
Hong Kong is the world’s 11th largest trading economy, with free trade, low taxation and mostly minimum government intervention. The economy is largely service-based and increasingly closely integrated with Mainland China. For 2011, GDP per capita was US$49,800, with a labour force of 3.7 million. The currency is the Hong Kong dollar (HKD or HK$).
Government
Hong Kong is a Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China, following the ‘one country, two systems’ principle. The HKSAR’s constitutional document, the Basic Law, ensures that the current political situation will remain in effect for 50 years. The rights of people in Hong Kong are based on the impartial rule of law and an independent judiciary, while the Head of Government is the Chief Executive (the current holder is Leung Chun-ying), who oversees the semi-elected 60-seat Legislative Council.
Religion
There are a large number of religious groups in Hong Kong, including Buddhists and Taoists (700,000), Catholics (355,000), Protestants (320,000), Muslims (90,000), Hindus (40,000) and Sikhs (10,000), as well as a small Jewish community. Places of worship for all of the above can be found across the city.
Hong Kong’s STORIED PAST
As the walk-through exhibition at the Museum of History (100 Chatham Road South, 2724 9042; www.hk.history.museum) attests to the fact that Hong Kong has a long past—from prehistoric to Imperial Chinese to British, all creating the thriving modern-day metropolis we see today.
According to archaeological studies, humans have lived in the area from around 35,000 to 39,000 years ago (interestingly, they chose to first settle in Chek Lap Kok, the site of the current airport). However, it was not until the Bronze Age (3000–700 BC) that a large influx of people moved into the area, as shown by the stone carvings that still can be seen across the territory, including examples on Po Toi Island, Cheung Chau and Big Wave Bay on the south coast of Hong Kong Island. In 111 BC, what is now known as Guangdong was conquered by the forces of Emperor Wu of Han, thus establishing control of the Han Dynasty over the area. The Lei Cheng Uk Han Tomb Museum (41 Tonkin Street, Sham Shui Po, Kowloon, 2386 2863; www.lcsd.gov.hk/CE/Museum/History/en/lcuht.php) in Sham Shui Po is a burial tomb dating from the Eastern Han Dynasty (AD 25–220).
The Tang, Song and Qing Dynasties followed, as did Portuguese traders in the early 1500s, who temporarily occupied a fort in Tuen Mun. In 1699, the first British traders arrived in the form of the British East India Company. By 1711, the company had established a trading post in Canton (Guangzhou), where it continued to import its most sought-after item—opium—for the next 100 years. By 1839, Chinese addiction to the drug has become such that an Imperial Chinese commissioner named Lin Zexu appealed to Britain’s Queen Victoria to end the debilitating trade. That same year, he confiscated 1.2 million kg of opium from Western traders and threw it into the sea, an act that led directly to the First Opium War (1839–42).
After the Chinese suffered heavy defeats, they were forced to sign the Treaty of Nanking, which ceded Hong Kong Island to the British in perpetuity. The Second Opium War (1856–8) led to the ceding of the Kowloon Peninsula, then in 1898 the New Territories were occupied under a 99-year lease.
The initial growth of Hong Kong in the early 20th century was slow but steady as the British set about building a colony, introducing electricity, public transport, education and health systems as well as British-led trading, banking and financial sectors. However, a storm was brewing. On 8 December 1941,