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On January 26, 1841, Commodore Bremer officially took possession of Hong Kong Island on behalf of the British Empire. Since then, Hong Kong Island has always been the administrative and financial center of Hong Kong. However, contrary to what one might expect, Hong Kong Island is not Hong Kong’s largest island; that honor goes to Lantau Island, located 7.3 kilometers (4.55 miles) west of Hong Kong Island at its closest point. Unlike Hong Kong Island and the Kowloon Peninsula,

Traveling from any Western city to Hong Kong may seem long. Flying from Los Angeles, USA, to Hong Kong, for instance, will take you fifteen hours; from London, UK, to Hong Kong, will take you the better part of thirteen hours; and from Sydney, Australia, to Hong Kong, nearly ten hours. Yet, the furthest city from Hong Kong is not to be found in the West but in South America—more specifically, in Bolivia. Located about 19,900 kilometers (12,350 miles) from Hong Kong, the city

In 1979, Sumitomo Heavy Industries completed the construction of a 418,611-ton ultra-large crude carrier at the shipyards in Oppama, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. However, following a disagreement with its Greek owner, who refused to take delivery, the ship remained unnamed. Fortunately, the shipyard reached a deal with Tung Chao-yun, better known as C.Y. Tung, the founder of Hong Kong-based Orient Overseas Container Line (OOCL). The deal included the jumboisation of the ship t

Law Uk is a village built in Chai Wan, on the eastern end of Hong Kong Island, by the Hakka, a Han Chinese subgroup; and one of the four indigenous groups of people that inhabited Hong Kong before British colonization. It is estimated that Law Uk, named after the Law family who lived in the house, was built in the mid-eighteenth century, roughly ninety years before the British took possession of Hong Kong Island. Following World War II, large numbers of refugees from mainland

When the Kowloon-Canton Railway first began operation on October 1, 1910, steam was the only available railway technology. As such, all trains operating between Kowloon and Canton (present-day Guangzhou) were steam engines. However, during the Second World War, the railway in Hong Kong was heavily damaged, with entire sections missing; Japanese occupation forces raided workshops for equipment and neglected maintenance of the rolling stock. Moreover, the rolling stock had been

Between the exchange of ratification of the Treaty of Nanjing on June 26, 1843, by which Hong Kong officially became a Crown Colony, and the transfer of sovereignty of Hong Kong to the People’s Republic of China on July 1, 1997, a total of 28 British governors have ruled Hong Kong. Most of the governors of Hong Kong served between 3 and 7 years. However, two governors stand out due to their longevity at the helm of the colony. Sir Alexander Grantham, after whom the famous fir

When the Qing Dynasty ceded the Kowloon Peninsula to the British Empire as a result of the British victory in the Second Opium War in 1860, the harbor that would come to be known as Victoria Harbour was over 2 km (about 1.2 miles), wide between Tsim Sha Tsui and Wan Chai. Yet, as a result of the successive reclamation projects undertaken on Hong Kong Island and in Tsim Sha Tsui, the width of Victoria Harbour steadily shrank. So much so that today, Victoria Harbour measures a

In March 1993, the demolition of an area the size of two football fields began in Hong Kong. What was initially a Chinese military outpost had turned into a Chinese enclave within British Kowloon when, in 1898, the Qing Dynasty leased the New Territories to the British Empire for 99 years. This historic peculiarity meant that, henceforth, neither Chinese forces nor British law enforcement could enter the area out of fear of initiating a diplomatic battle between the two empir

Looking at a picture of Hong Kong Island taken from Kowloon, across Victoria Harbour, one cannot miss the mountain range that stretches south of Hong Kong’s financial heart, Central, with Victoria Peak as a commanding presence. Although its height has been subdued over the decades by the hundreds of skyscrapers built at its feet, Victoria Peak, also known historically as Mount Austin, remains a prominent feature on Hong Kong Island. Paradoxically, even though it is the talles

Although Hong Kong was officially a British colony for 155 years, from August 29, 1842, to July 1, 1997, only one British monarch has visited Hong Kong as the reigning monarch. Of course, many princes and princesses have visited Hong Kong, and King George V, King Edward VIII, and King Charles III also visited Hong Kong; but they did so in their capacity as princes, not as the King of the United Kingdom. In fact, the only British monarch to have ever visited Hong Kong was al

Hong Kong is one of the wealthiest cities in the world. In 2025, the city was home to 154,500 high-net-worth individuals, meaning citizens with a net worth of $1,000,000 USD or more. In other words, about 2% of Hong Kong's population are millionaires. However, while the media often focus on the number of millionaires and billionaires in the territory, they frequently overlook the number of poor people in Hong Kong. Unfortunately, despite its high concentration of wealthy resi

Nowadays, Kowloon covers a vast area stretching from Mei Foo in the West to Yau Tong and Lei Yue Mun in the East, and Lion Rock Country Park in the North. However, if you had visited Kowloon in the second half of the 19th century, you would have been restricted to a much smaller part of Kowloon. After the British defeated the Chinese Empire in the Second Opium War in 1860, the Qing Dynasty was compelled to sign the Convention of Peking, which included, among other provisions,

Hong Kong is home to 52 species of snakes: 46 land snakes and 6 sea snakes. Among the land snakes native to Hong Kong, some species, such as the Chinese cobra and the king cobra, pack a lethal punch. Yet, every year, it is the white-lipped viper, also known as the bamboo pit viper, that is responsible—by far—for the majority of the approximately 100 snakebites recorded in Hong Kong annually. However, thanks to the state-of-the-art healthcare system in Hong Kong and the close

If you ever fly over Hong Kong, you may notice an unnatural rectangular strip of land jutting into Kowloon Bay. This strip of land was once one of the most dangerous landing strips in the world, known as Kai Tak International Airport. Although Kai Tak has been known as an airfield since 1924, it was only in 1958 that its most striking feature—a 2,550-meter runway extending into Kowloon Bay—was built through land reclamation. Since then, the airport has undergone numerous modi

Hong Kong is primarily known as one of the most important financial and banking centers in the world; but that wasn’t always the case. When the British took possession of Hong Kong Island in 1841, Hong Kong was little more than a barren rock lost in the South China Sea. However, Hong Kong was not an uninhabited territory either. In the eleventh century, the Punti, which literally translates as the "original residents," settled in what became the New Territories. They found fe

Contrary to what one might expect, HSBC was not the first banking institution in Hong Kong. In fact, being founded in 1864, HSBC, or the Hongkong Bank as it was originally known, was a relatively latecomer. In the early days of the colony, businesses in Hong Kong were controlled by trading houses such as, for instance, Jardine Matheson, Gibb Livingston, and Dent & Co. This oligopoly led to growing dissatisfaction and the development of a proper banking industry in Hong Kong.

With a population of 7.5 million inhabitants living on a land area of 1,114.35 square kilometers (430.25 square miles), needless to say that Hong Kong is a very densely populated city. This figure becomes even more striking when considering that there are no fewer than 579 mountains in Hong Kong, resulting in only 25% of the territory being suitable for construction. In such circumstances, agriculture in Hong Kong is very limited—though not nonexistent—primarily revolving aro

Hong Kong is often ranked among the wealthiest cities in the world. While it is true that it has one of the highest concentrations of billionaires and millionaires globally, the city also records one of the highest inequality rates in the world. In fact, despite being one of the world’s premier financial and banking centers, Hong Kong reports a rather disappointingly low GDP per capita of USD 55,000. In comparison, New York City, London, and Singapore (Hong Kong’s main compet

It may come as a surprise, but Hong Kong wasn’t always called Hong Kong. In fact, for the longest time, the island of Hong Kong, as a whole, had no name. It was only after the British first landed in present-day Aberdeen that the island was named Hong Kong... because of a misunderstanding. Indeed, Hong Kong owes its name to the area of Aberdeen, in southwestern Hong Kong Island. However, the English name of Aberdeen was given to the area in memory of Sir George Hamilton Gor

On January 26, 1988, the movie Bloodsport was released, featuring Belgian martial artist and actor Jean-Claude Van Damme in his first lead role. The story revolves around a ninjutsu practitioner who participates in a full-contact tournament known as the Kumite, which takes place in the infamous Kowloon Walled City in Hong Kong. The reason the tournament is held deep inside the Kowloon Walled City aligns perfectly with the city's real-life history, as police forces dared not