You Can Still Walk Along the Sino-British Border of 1861-1898

Following its defeat in the Second Opium War, in October 1860, the Qing Dynasty was forced to sign the Convention of Peking. This convention included, among other provisions, the cession to the British Empire of District No. 1 of Kowloon, which corresponds to the present-day Yau Tsim Mong District and Stonecutter’s Island.

British Kowloon, also known as Old Kowloon, was separated from what came to be known as New Kowloon, which remained in the possession of the Qing Dynasty, by a boundary marked by a tall bamboo fence.

When Great Britain and the Qing Dynasty eventually signed the 99-year lease of the New Territories on June 9, 1898, Old Kowloon and New Kowloon were reunited, rendering the boundary obsolete.

Almost immediately after the lease took effect, a street was built on the western part of the Old Frontier Line. Thirty-six years later, in 1934, it was extended eastward to facilitate the development of Kowloon Tong. This street has since been known as Boundary Street and still runs, to this day, from Tung Chau Street Park in the West to the former Kai Tak Airport in the East.