Stonecutters Island Is Not an Island (Anymore)

After the French-British victory in the Second Opium War, on October 24, 1860, Prince Gong of the Qing Dynasty signed the Convention of Peking. The convention included, among other provisions, the cession to Great Britain of District Number 1 of Kowloon, which corresponds to the modern-day Yau Tsim Mong District, as well as the cession of Stonecutters Island, a small island west of Kowloon’s shoreline.

However, if you were to try to locate Stonecutters Island on a modern map, you would soon realize that Stonecutters Island is not, in fact, an island. Or, more precisely, it is no longer an island.

As the population of Hong Kong grew, land became scarce. Because constructible land in Hong Kong is very limited, the successive Hong Kong governments had little choice but to undertake land reclamation projects, both on Hong Kong Island and in Kowloon and the New Territories.

In 1990, the largest reclamation ever undertaken in Hong Kong, the West Kowloon Reclamation, was launched. It involved reclaiming 340 hectares (3.4 km² or 1.3 square miles) along the waterfront, stretching from Yau Ma Tei to Lai Chi Kok.

The reclamation also included connecting Stonecutters Island to the Kowloon Peninsula to provide land for the construction of the Stonecutters Bridge and a railway network to Chek Lap Kok International Airport.