Hong Kong Owes its Name to Aberdeen

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 Gordon, 4th Earl of Aberdeen, British Foreign Secretary from 1841 (when Hong Kong Island was ceded to the United Kingdom) to 1846, and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1852 to 1855.

Well before the British landed in Hong Kong, however, a village on the neighboring island of Ap Lei Chau was mentioned on Ming-era maps, bearing the name Hēung Góng Tsuen, or Hong Kong Village. Additionally, a walled village nearby, Wong Chuk Han, named Hēung Góng Wai, was founded in the 18th century.

As the area was an important trading port when the British first arrived, they mistakenly believed that the name of the area was the name of the entire island. Consequently, they named the island Hong Kong Island. Later, after the cession of Kowloon in 1860 and the lease of the New Territories in 1898, they applied the name Hong Kong to the entire territory.

As for the area of Aberdeen, to this day, its Cantonese name remains 香港仔 (Hēung Góng Jái), which literally translates as "Little Hong Kong" in English.