Hong Kong

Hong Kong (Chinese 香港,), is a metropolis and special administrative region (SAR) on the south coast of the People's Republic of China in the Pearl River estuary. With over seven million inhabitants on 1106 square kilometers (7.3 million inhabitants as of the end of 2022) and an important economic and financial sector, Hong Kong is one of the world's cities. 95 percent of Hong Kong's inhabitants are Chinese, with a predominantly Cantonese mother tongue.

Hong Kong was occupied by the United Kingdom during the First Opium War in 1841 and declared a British crown colony by the Treaty of Nanking in 1843. For many Chinese, the British colony was a refuge from the Chinese Civil War from 1927 to 1949. In 1997, sovereignty was handed over to the People's Republic of China. Since then, Hong Kong has been a Chinese special administrative region, maintaining a free market economy and promised internal autonomy. This principle of one country, two systems was contractually agreed in the Joint Declaration on Hong Kong. As recently as 2013, Hong Kong was considered a regional haven of freedom of expression, in contrast to the rest of China. Since 2014 at the latest, however, China has increasingly broken its promise of autonomy and restricted the freedom of the Hong Kong population. This has repeatedly led to large-scale demonstrations by the population, for example in 2014 and 2019/2020.

Hong Kong's population growth and the small amount of developable land have led to large-scale land reclamation by filling up the sea and the creation of a skyline of skyscrapers. After the construction of several planned cities in the second half of the 20th century, half of Hong Kong's population lives in the New Territories. The most densely populated areas are the Kowloon Peninsula and the north of Hong Kong Island, which are separated by the narrow strait of Victoria Harbour. The New Territories include the original hinterland north of Kowloon, which makes up the largest area of ​​Hong Kong, and most of Hong Kong's 263 islands. The largest island in Hong Kong is Lantau Island, near which Hong Kong International Airport is located on the island of Chek Lap Kok.

Hong Kong is considered to be one of the cities with the highest cost of living in the world.

 

Geography and climate

Hong Kong is located on the Pearl River Delta. Hong Kong's 1,090km² area is divided into four regions: Hong Kong Island (79km²), Kowloon (12km²), New Territories (740km²) and the Outer Islands (248km²). The city is defined by the mountains at whose foot it stretches. The highest elevation is the TaiMoShan (957m) in the New Territories, the highest elevation on Hong Kong Island is 'The Peak' (552m).

Almost eight million people live in Hong Kong, mainly in Kowloon and in the north of Hong Kong Island. The New Territories and the other islands are often sparsely populated and in some cases not populated at all. 98 percent of Hong Kong's population is Chinese and only about one percent of the residents are white. The most important religions are Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism. Christians make up almost 10 percent of the population in Hong Kong, mainly Anglicans and Catholics. Islam is also represented, and there is a large mosque on Nathan Road at the level of Kowloon Park.

Hong Kong has a subtropical climate with humid and hot summers and dry and mild winters. Temperatures in January are 15 to 20 degrees and rise to an average of almost 30 degrees in the summer months. The high humidity may be particularly unusual, especially in the months of April to August. Values ​​of 97% are not uncommon. From April to September the monsoon brings large amounts of precipitation, especially in the form of sudden cloudbursts. In summer (July–September) it is typhoon season, and during these hurricane-like storms there is sometimes a curfew, which you should also adhere to. You can travel to Hong Kong all year round, but the months of June to August can be quite difficult in terms of climate. However, there is also plenty of shade and a fresh breeze.

 

Regions

Kowloon
Kowloon was once the most densely populated place on earth and is still the most densely populated part of Hong Kong today. The fact that Kowloon does not (yet) have as impressive a skyline as the side across the harbor is because until a few years ago the airport was located in the middle of Kowloon on the harbor, making it impossible to build high-rise buildings. Kowloon is best known for its street markets and small shops that sell everything from cheap tailor-made suits to expensive Rolexes.
Mong Kok – Mong Kok is located north of Tsim Sha Tsui around the MTR station of the same name. The district is known for its markets and among Hong Kong's Chinese residents for its nightlife, which is a little cheaper than on the other side of the harbor.
Tsim Sha Tsui – The tip of the Kowloon peninsula offers a fantastic view of the skyline across the harbor. Tsim Sha Tsui is best known for tourist shopping, tailor-made suits and fake Rolex watches.

Hong Kong Island
The island was the nucleus of the former British colony that grew around the city of Victoria. The skyline of the districts facing Victoria Harbour is considered one of the most beautiful in the world and it continues to grow. The tallest building is currently the 86-story IFC2 Tower in the Central district. On the south side of Hong Kong Island there are a few beaches and scattered satellite towns such as Stanley and Aberdeen. Hong Kong Island is dominated by a number of mountains, of which Victoria Peak - now mostly just called The Peak - towers over the skyline and offers a fantastic view over Victoria Harbour.

New Territories
These are the areas on the mainland that were added to the British colony along with Kowloon and the surrounding islands towards the end of the 19th century. These areas form an amazing contrast to the hectic city of Hong Kong and in some parts appear very rural. Important places are Sha Tin and Tai Po.

Outlying Islands
This is the name of all the large and small islands scattered around the Kowloon Peninsula and Hong Kong Island. By far the largest island is Lantau, where the airport is located and which is connected to the subway network. The island is rich in destinations, for example there is the newly opened Disneyland theme park and the largest free-sitting Buddha statue in the world. The car-free island of Lamma is in the immediate vicinity of Hong Kong Island, it is popular mainly because of the good seafood and the small, pretty beaches, but there is also a large, unsightly coal-fired power plant on the island.

 

Getting there

Entry requirements
EU citizens of the Schengen states and Swiss citizens can visit Hong Kong for up to three months (90 days) without a visa. For longer stays, you must either apply for a work visa or leave Hong Kong temporarily (a day trip is enough), for example to Macau or Shenzhen. When you arrive on the plane or boat, you will be given an entry form (Arrival Card), which you should definitely keep safe, as you will have to present the form again when you leave the country. Recently, an entry stamp is no longer placed in the passport, but the traveler receives a small computer printout with the same information that was previously on the stamp. This form should also be kept safe, but it will not be retained when you leave the country. If you lose this entry form, you can request a replacement from the immigration authorities' headquarters (7 Gloucester Road, Wan Chai). Holders of a German passport that is valid for at least 6 months can register for electronic border control free of charge after entry control at the airport (duration approx. 5 minutes, a signature must be provided, a photo and the fingerprints of both index fingers are also recorded). For future visits within the validity period of the passport, the automated border control machines (“e-gates”) can then be used both when entering and leaving the country, which can save a lot of time depending on the time of day. In addition, filling out an arrival form (“landing card”) is no longer necessary for future entries.

There are no basic customs controls, but they are always possible. Duty-free are: 19 cigarettes or 1 cigar (25g); 1 liter of wine or liquor. e-cigarettes (“vapes”) are completely prohibited and their use is punishable. Other goods in reasonable quantities. Firearms must be declared and handed over for safekeeping upon entry. Foreign currency and HKD can be imported and exported without restrictions.

By plane
Practically all major airlines (e.g. Swiss, Lufthansa, Air France, British Airways, Emirates, Cathay Pacific, Gulf Air, Singapore Airlines, China Airlines) fly to Hong Kong from Switzerland or Germany. Direct flights are available from Frankfurt am Main, Zurich and Munich and take around 12 hours. The prices for a return ticket range between 500 and 1000 euros. Tickets are most expensive during the summer holidays and around Christmas/New Year.

Chek Lap Kok Airport is located in Hong Kong outside the city on the island of Lan Tau. This is connected to the city by a large bridge. If you don't have accommodation yet, we recommend using the hotel reservation desk in the entrance hall, which often offers rooms at very good rates. There are several options for getting from the airport to the city. It is probably advisable to buy an Octopus card (see Mobility) directly at the airport. The Airport Express (AE, 6:00 a.m. to 1:00 a.m.) is certainly the fastest option. For 100 HKD (110 HKD) you can get to Kowloon (Hong Kong station) in 20 minutes (24 minutes). For Octopus card holders, an MTR ride following the Airport Express ride is free, but there must still be sufficient credit (including the credit limit granted) on the card (this is particularly important to consider if you are travelling to Hong Kong station and the Octopus card already exceeds the basic credit limit). A taxi ride costs around 300 HKD to Kowloon, or 350 HKD to Hong Kong Island. The different colours of the taxis represent the areas they serve. Red taxis go into the city (green to the New Territories and blue to Lan Tau). There are also various buses to and from the airport. These are marked with an "A" in front of them.

Train and bus
There are bus and train connections to Hong Kong from Guangzhou and other places in China. At the border, however, you have to get off with your luggage and walk through the controls. On the other side, you get back on and continue.

The high-speed train between Guangzhou South connects you to West Kowloon Terminal in Hong Kong. There are stops at six stations along the way, including in Shenzhen at the North Station (22° 36′ 37″ N 114° 1′ 49″ E) (深圳北站). The border control for entry into the People's Republic takes place in Kowloon. Prices (2018) Shenzhen HK$ 86, Guangzhou HK$ 247 and Beijing HK$ 1237.

An alternative to flying are the high-speed night trains to Shanghai and Beijing, which run from Friday to Monday. The cheapest class costs around €85, the most expensive just under €250.

By road
You can drive from Lantau to Macao and Zhuhai on the 6-lane, longest "bridge" in the world, 6.7 kilometers of which are built as a tunnel. However, traffic drives on the right-hand side, and vehicles registered in Hong Kong require a special license plate. Buses run 24 hours a day.

The Heung Yuen Wai border crossing (香園圍邊境管制站) in Shenzhen's Luohu-ku has been open to everyone, not just trucks, since February 2023. Without a car, you can get there by bus B8, B9 (HK) or 59S (CN). It is open from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m.

Ship and helicopter
There is a ferry connection with Macau. Depending on how much you want to pay and how much time you have, there are various options. Including a helicopter.

There are two ferry terminals for Macau from Hong Kong, one in Central and one in Kowloon. The ferries run around the clock and every 15 to 20 minutes. The journey takes about an hour. The processing is very efficient. Normally you buy a ticket at the terminal, go straight through passport control and board the next ship. There may only be waiting times on weekends. There are booking options for hotels in Macau at the terminals.

The Kai Tak Cruise Terminal for cruise ships was built on the site of the old airport. It is about 10 km from the Star Ferry Pier.

 

Local transport

Octopus card and Tourist Day Pass
Whether you are taking the bus, MTR (subway), Airport Express, tram or boat, you can pay everywhere with the Octopus card. This card is sold at the airport (at counters between customs control and the exit and at machines next to the entrances to the Airport Express) for 200 HKD. 150 HKD of this is credit and 50 HKD is a deposit. The card can be topped up at any MTR station at machines that accept 50 HKD and 100 HKD banknotes and at service counters. You can also have money added to your card in many of the local chain cafés and mini-markets, which is particularly useful if you don't have the right banknotes. The highest credit is 1000 HKD.

The advantage of the card is that a certain amount can always be automatically debited at a station when you enter or leave a vehicle and you don't have to worry about tickets or change. In addition, you receive a 10% discount on every second journey on the MTR that takes place on the same day. Holders of an Octopus card for seniors (aged 65 and over) receive additional discounts such as reduced fares and free travel on the Star Ferry. You can now also pay with the Octopus card outside of public transport in some cases, e.g. at 7-Eleven supermarkets, all cafe chains or in some McDonalds restaurants.

If the balance on the Octopus card is no longer sufficient to pay for the entire journey when paying (usually at the platform barriers at the destination station), the card is automatically overdrawn up to the amount of the deposit paid (50 HKD). However, with an overdrawn Octopus card, it is no longer possible to pass the platform barriers when entering a station; the card must then be recharged first.

Any unused balance will be refunded when the card is returned. If the card is returned within 3 months of its issue, a fee of 9 HKD will be retained. If you travel to the airport with the Airport Express, you can return the card at the service counter directly on the Terminal 1 platform of the train.

An alternative is the “Tourist Day Pass”, which can be purchased at the counter in the MTR stations. It is a 24-hour card, valid from the first use. For 65 HK$, the ticket allows unlimited travel on the MTR lines. Travel on the Airport Express and to the Lo Wu / Lok Ma Chau stations (border with mainland China) are excluded. Buses are also not included.

By train
The KCR regional trains were a supplement to the MTR and have been part of the MTR Cooperation since 2007. You can also pay with the Octopus card. They travel on several lines to the border near Shenzhen. With their regular departures, low prices and mostly underground routes, they are more reminiscent of a subway.

Trains run from HungHom main station to Chinese metropolises such as Guangzhou, Beijing or Shanghai, and the new high-speed station "Kowloon West" connects Shenzhen and Guangzhou via high-speed rail.

MTR
Hong Kong has one of the most modern mass transport systems in the world. There are five different routes through Hong Kong's underground, on which the MTR runs from 6 a.m. to 1 a.m. During peak times, the trains run every 2 minutes, otherwise every 4 minutes. Fares start at 4 HKD. Crossing the harbor basin generally costs 9 HKD.

If you don't want to travel with an Octopus Card, you can buy single tickets from machines. The MTR network is shown on the machine and you just touch the station you want to go to. You then pay the fare in cash and take out the card; the machines give you change. In contrast to the Octopus Card, which opens the barriers to the MTR with “touch and go”, the single ticket must be manually inserted into a slot and removed again after passing through the barrier. When you leave the MTR, the single ticket is retained by the reader.

The MTR stations are generally built on two floors and have very good traffic management. From the surface, you first go to a mezzanine floor, where there are service counters and a number of small shops. The barriers are on the mezzanine floor and behind the barriers you go to the basement floor and the tracks. The pedestrian flows are directed so that arriving and departing passengers only meet on the platform directly at the MTR doors.

Announcements in the MTR are generally trilingual (Mandarin, Cantonese and English), and labels are always bilingual (Chinese, English). An animated display of the route shows the line, direction of travel, next station and exit side.

Eating and drinking is not permitted on the MTR, and smoking is strictly prohibited. There are no toilets in the MTR stations. The metro is very clean, there is no pushing and elderly people are given a seat when they enter.

Airport Express
When the airport was relocated from the city center around 46 kilometers out of the city, a new connection was also needed. The Airport Express is much faster than the MTR and takes 23 minutes to travel between the airport and Central Station. The route goes via Tsing Yi and Kowloon Station. A one-time trip costs 110 HKD for the Central Station - Airport route (100 HKD from Kowloon Station, 65 HKD from Tsing Yi Station, as of June 2019), but only if you pay with an Octopus card. Single tickets are generally 5 HKD more expensive. The preceding or subsequent MTR trip is free. It is also possible to buy a round-trip ticket (Central Station: 205 HKD, Kowloon Station 185 HKD, Tsing Yi 120 HKD). The Airport Express runs between 5:50 a.m. and 1:15 a.m.

Anyone with a ticket for the Airport Express can use the free in-town check-in. All major airlines have check-in counters in both Central and Kowloon Station, where luggage can be checked in hours before departure. This is particularly useful if you have to leave the hotel early but your flight is not leaving until later, or if you want to take a leisurely stroll around Hong Kong. The check-in counters are open from 5:30 a.m. to 12:30 a.m.

However, you should note that if you arrive at the Airport Express on one of the MTR lines that run across Hong Kong Island to Central Station, you have to travel a considerable distance underground between the MTR station and the in-town check-in or the Airport Express station, passing under the International Finance Centre. This route, which is entirely within the ticket-paying area, can be very busy, especially at peak times, which is why you may not be able to use any of the existing conveyor belts and have to carry your luggage the entire distance.

The Airport Express also offers a connection to the AsiaWorld-Expo site.

MTR Light Rail
The Light Rail is a tram system in Hong Kong that is also operated by the MTR company. It extends from Yuen Long to Tuen Mun in the western New Territories. For journeys on the Light Rail, it is definitely advisable to use the Octopus card, as otherwise you will have to deal with paper tickets and a zone tariff model. When using the Octopus card, billing is automatic, similar to the MTR, depending on the start and destination stops. There are 2 different Octopus readers on the Light Rail platforms. The orange devices (Entry Fare Processor) are for noting the start stop on the Octopus card and the green devices (Exit Fare Processor) are for checking out and calculating the fare. Since there is no cordoned-off station area like the MTR that can only be entered with a valid ticket, there are sporadic ticket/Octopus checks on the Light Rail lines.

Tram
The tram costs HK$2.30 and is the cheapest means of transport along with the Star Ferry. The price remains the same whether you travel just one stop or to the final stop. You get on at the back and pay the driver at the front when you get off, either in cash or with the Octopus card.

The carriages are not very high. If you are over 180 cm tall, you should only get on if you have a good view of a seat. It is common practice to simply let crowded trams pass and take the next one.

The names of the stations can be read from both the upper and lower decks. In general, it is more pleasant and clearer for tourists to travel on the upper deck.

The tram runs from Kennedy Town in the west to Happy Valley (to the racecourse) or Shau Kei Wan in the east. It is one of the few double-decker trams still in use in the world. A ride on the tram, especially on the upper deck, is a must for any visit to Hong Kong. For example, you can get on anywhere in Central and then travel to Happy Valley or Northpoint and see part of the city this way. The trams that run on the Happy Valley loop (lines 4 and 5) continue in the original direction after a short stop at the terminus behind the racecourse. A tram that runs from the Western Market to Happy Valley then continues its journey towards North Point and vice versa.

By bus
Hong Kong has a well-developed bus network with stops on almost every corner. If you don't want to take the Airport Express to/from the airport, the double-decker line A 21 is a good option. A 21 goes directly to Kowloon and offers a better view than the train. In contrast to the tram, for example, you pay when you get on the bus, not when you get off. However, you should note that the fare is generally calculated from the boarding stop to the end stop of the line, even if you only travel one stop. The cheapest option is to travel from the second to last stop on the line, the most expensive option is to get on at the start stop and get off at the second stop on the line. However, since bus fares are also very cheap compared to Europe, this hardly matters.

You should also note that at stops where several bus lines stop, there are sometimes several queues for the different bus lines. These are usually marked by lines on the ground together with the line numbers.

On the road
Driving in Hong Kong is not easy for those unfamiliar with the area and is very expensive. Parking spaces in particular are a rarity on Hong Kong Island and the opposite side of the harbor. It is no wonder that traffic consists almost exclusively of buses, taxis, delivery vans and expensive luxury vehicles. Three tunnels run under the harbor and are subject to a fee: Eastern Harbor Crossing, Cross Harbor Tunnel and Western Harbor Crossing.

Taxi
Hong Kong's taxis are very cheap compared to European cities. The first two kilometers cost 24 HKD, then 1.50 HKD per 200 meters. Prices in taxis are usually rounded up to the nearest HKD, and passengers must also pay a baggage surcharge (5 HKD per piece of luggage transported in the trunk) and the tunnel toll for crossing under the harbor basin (55 HKD).

A special feature is that taxis are only allowed to pick up passengers in certain areas of the city, but can then drive anywhere. Red taxis drive on Hong Kong Island and in Kowloon, blue taxis on Lan Tau and green taxis in the New Territories. For a trip through one of the harbor tunnels, drivers charge a surcharge of 10 HKD in addition to the actual toll, as they have to return empty. At so-called cross-harbour taxi stands, you only pay the tunnel fee.

Not every driver understands destination information in English. You are then either connected to the central office by radio and can state your destination there, or you have to try the next taxi. It is a good idea to ask the hotel concierge to give you the address in Chinese, as a business card or on a piece of paper.

By boat
Not as fast, but definitely more beautiful, is crossing the harbor in a boat. The Star Ferry ferries have long since become an icon of the harbor in Hong Kong. The connection between Tsim Sha Tsui and Central is particularly impressive. The price for this route is 2.50 HKD for the lower deck and 3.00 HKD for the upper deck. From half past six in the morning to half past eleven in the evening, the ferries run every 10 minutes. Ferry connections across the harbor are available from Tsim Sha Tsui to Central and Wan Chai, from Hung Hom to Central, Wan Chai and North Point, and from Kwun Tong to North Point.

In addition to the harbor crossings, ferries mainly connect Hong Kong with the offshore islands. The most important branch is the Outlying Islands Ferry Pier, just west of the Star Ferry Pier in Central. The Outlying Islands are usually served every 20 to 30 minutes, with both fast ferries (catamarans) and "regular" ferries that can transport bulky goods running. The latter can be recognized by a blue marking on the timetables and are slightly cheaper, with a choice between first (upper deck, air-conditioned) and second (main and lower deck, not air-conditioned) class. Passengers who want to use first class must choose a separate turnstile at the departure port and receive a voucher that entitles them to enter the first class area. It is not possible to pay the surcharge on board. A trip from Central to Cheung Chau or Mui Wo (Lantau) costs around 23 HDK (regular ferry, second class, weekdays) and 33 HKD (fast ferry, Sundays), depending on whether it is a weekday or a weekend.

Payment can be made in cash, by purchasing tokens and with the Octopus Card. Tokens are purchased at machines; tokens are typically only used by tourists.

Other entry options from China are the CKS Ferries (Chu Kong Shipping Enterprises) from mainland China. From Zhongshan Passenger Port you can either go directly to the airport and check in at the port or take a second ferry directly to Hong Kong City (very centrally located at the China Ferry Terminal). The crossing cost 185 HKD in November 2019.

By bike
It is a bad idea to try to travel through Hong Kong by bike. The high temperatures and, above all, high humidity make cycling very difficult. In addition, almost all of Hong Kong is not only hilly, but mountainous. Driving on the left is unusual for continental Europeans. Motor vehicles are not used to being confronted with bicycles, and cycle paths practically do not exist.

 

Sights

Temple

1 Lan Tau Island (天坛大佛, ​Tian Tan Buddha). The temple grounds of Lan Tau Island are grouped around one of the largest Buddha statues in East Asia. If you go up the stairs, you can climb further up and have a beautiful view of the surroundings. There is a vegetarian restaurant in the temple.
2 Wong Tai Sin Temple (黃大仙祠). One of the larger temple complexes in Hong Kong and one of the main tourist attractions is the Wong Tai Sin Temple. The Taoist temple in honor of the great Wong is particularly known for its fortune telling. In front of the main hall of the temple you will see many people predicting their future with the oracle sticks and then going to one of the many fortune tellers. If you want, you can try it out too, some of the fortune tellers also speak English. At the back of the temple there is a quiet garden where there are no tourist groups. There are small pavilions and a Nine Dragon Wall here. MTR Wong Tai Sin.

 

Museums

From August 1, 2016, admission to the following museums is free: Hong Kong Museum of History, Hong Kong Heritage Museum, Hong Kong Museum of Art, Hong Kong Museum of Coastal Defence and Dr Sun Yat-sen Museum.

1 Hong Kong Museum of History (香港歷史博物館). Hong Kong Museum of History and the Science Museum right next door are described under Kowloon.
2 Flagstaff House Museum of Tea Ware (茶具文物館). The museum of teaware is located in the oldest foreign building in Hong Kong, in Hong Kong Park. Until 1978, the house, built in 1844, housed the commander of the British forces. Since 1984, it has housed an exhibition of traditional and modern teaware as well as the history of tea culture in China. MTR-Admiralty. Price: Admission is free.
3 Lei Cheng Uk Museum (李鄭屋漢墓博物館)
4 Museum of Art (香港藝術館)
Space Museum
5 Hongkong Heritage Museum, 1 Man Lam Road, Sha Tin, Hong Kong. Tel.: +852 2180 8188. Blue line MTR to Che Kung Temple, from there about 5 minutes over the pedestrian bridge or over the traffic bridge, large building. Permanent exhibition and other changing exhibitions.

 

Miscellaneous

The Peak (太平山, formerly Victoria Peak). Hong Kong's local mountain offers a unique view of the metropolis. The ride on the Peak Tram, which has connected the Peak with the lower districts since 1885, is already attractive. From the Peak Tower, where the tram ends, and from the shopping mall next to it, you can enjoy a great view of the city. If you have some time, you should definitely not miss a walk along Lugard Road. After about 10-15 minutes you will have a spectacular panorama that shows the city from a different perspective than from the Peak Tower. You can continue along Lugard Road and walk around the Peak (takes about an hour). The way back is then via Harlech Road. The actual summit of the Peak is a half-hour walk from the tram station. To get to the summit, follow Mt. Austin Road. This walk is particularly worthwhile because of the Peak Garden, a beautifully landscaped garden with a fabulous view. At certain times of the day, there can be long waiting times at the Peak Tram stations; it is advisable to start the journey in the early afternoon. Unfortunately, it is no longer possible for Octopus Card users to skip the queue at the ticket office. However, you can buy tickets to the wax museum at the Peak Tram valley station - these then allow you to use a fast lane to bypass the general queues. Peak Tram from Admiralty: 88 HKD return, every 10-15 minutes between 7 a.m. and midnight. If you want to avoid the often one to two hour tram wait, you can take bus 15 from Exchange Square in Central, 9.20 HKD one way.
6 Ocean Park Hong Kong (香港海洋公園) . Ocean Park Hong Kong is not only a nice way for families with children to spend a quiet day in Hong Kong. In addition to several rides, restaurants, a sea lion and dolphin show, the park's main attraction is the giant pandas. Several of them live here in large enclosures. There are also their relatives, the red pandas, small-clawed otters and fish to admire. A cable car and the "submarine" Nautilus, a train that appears to travel underwater, connect the two parts of the park at the foot and on the top of a mountain. Black kites use the thermals here and circle above the visitors and sometimes under the cable car gondolas.
7 Victoria Harbour (維多利亞港). The harbour between the Kowloon Peninsula and Hong Kong Island in Hong Kong. Covering an area of ​​approximately 41.88 km² in 2004, its natural depth and sheltered position enticed the British to occupy Hong Kong Island during the First Opium War to establish a colony and trading post. The harbour is famous for its magnificent panoramic views and is a top tourist attraction. It is a landmark of the area and is regarded by city residents as a key natural geographical feature. The landmark's importance to the territory was clearly demonstrated in recent years when the government wanted to carry out redevelopment projects in the harbour. The projects led to fierce protests, even though the projects were supposed to have provided work for the last half century and another.
8 Promenade (Skyline). It is not the stars and starlets immortalised in the cement slabs of the Avenue of Stars behind the Hong Kong Cultural Centre that are the star here, but Hong Kong Island's skyline. Whether in broad daylight or illuminated at night, the promenade is always worth a visit and a highlight among Hong Kong's sights. The skyline is particularly impressive at sunset when it is bathed in evening sunlight. A tripod is definitely recommended in the evening and at night. MTR station: Tsim Sha Tsui.
Nian Lian Garden (南蓮園池). This beautiful garden can be found right next to the Diamond Hill MTR station. The place is relatively quiet on weekdays and there are hardly any tourists. The park is designed in traditional Chinese style and has a lake and a waterfall in addition to various small pavilions. In addition, the park has a building for exhibitions, which charge admission, a vegetarian restaurant, a souvenir shop and a hall for tea ceremonies that can be rented. Directly opposite the park is the Chi Lin Nunnery, which houses a temple built in the style of the Tang Dynasty.
Kowloon Walled City Park (九龍寨城公園). A place of particular historical significance is the Kowloon Walled City Park. The former Kowloon Fortress was located on the park site. After Hong Kong Island fell to the British, the fortress built in 1810 was reinforced by the Qing government. After the New Territories became British, the British evacuated the fortress, even though it was Chinese territory, and left to its own devices. During the Japanese occupation, the fortress was dismantled to obtain building materials for the nearby Kai Tak airfield. After the Japanese withdrew, the area, which still officially belonged to China, became a lawless slum. Construction took place without any rules, the streets housed illegal shops and doctors and were the retreat of the triads. Since Hong Kong had no legal authority over the area, in 1987 it was decided together with China to demolish the slums, which ended in 1994. Today, the area is home to a park in the classic Chinese style. In the only original house of the former fortress, the Yamen, there is an interactive exhibition about the life of the people in the former slums. The remains of the fortress found during excavations as well as various historical pictures are on display throughout the park. Tung Tau Tsuen Rd., MRT Lok Fu then 15 min. on foot. The world's most famous mouse and his friends can be seen in Disneyland Hong Kong on Lan Tau Island.
The sky100 is almost as high as Victoria Peak, and from here you have a good panoramic view of Hong Kong Island and Kowloon. If you want to go even higher, you should dress reasonably well and go up to the Ozone Bar. There is usually no admission charge. The drink prices are higher than in most bars in Hong Kong, but if you only order a beer or soft drink, it's even cheaper than paying admission to the sky100. The view is limited to Kowloon.

 

What to do

Hiking. As strange as it may sound, Hong Kong is a hiking paradise. Whether MacLehose on Hong Kong Island or a hike to the beautiful Tai Long Wan beach near SaiKung, which can only be reached on foot, the network of trails is well developed and partly leads through untouched nature.

 

Shopping

Hong Kong is a shopping paradise, especially for cameras, electronics and fashion. In addition to the shopping centres, there are also large department stores, small boutiques and street markets. If you want to go on a big shopping spree, you can start from the MRT stations Kowloon Central or Causeway Bay, for example.

However, electronics are no longer available at bargain prices like they were years ago. The selection is not necessarily greater than in a German electronics store or specialist shop. In order to buy reasonably cheaply, you would have to spend a lot of time. An example: In November 2012, a tablet computer was to be purchased, which at that time was available in Germany by mail order from €208 (including tax). Six shops in different parts of the city were compared, and in the end a device was purchased for around €200, the user interface and keyboard of which had to be changed to German, which did not have a European plug, which only had 8 GB instead of 16 GB (as is usual in German offers) and only had a one-year Hong Kong guarantee (instead of 2 years worldwide). The 3G version could only have been operated with a Hong Kong SIM card. But these differences are only known if you ask. So anyone buying electronics here needs to find out as much as possible beforehand.

Camera technology is hardly cheaper than in Europe. Be careful with unknown brands of lenses or flash units. Wide-angle or telephoto attachments for lenses are often offered, but the optical quality is very poor. Branded goods are available, but rarely really cheap. However, you can get good bargains on products from Hong Kong (e.g. Nissin flash units), which are significantly cheaper than on Amazon. Small spare parts such as lens caps or UV filters are often significantly more expensive than in Germany.

Cameras are hardly cheaper than in Europe, and branded lenses in the lower and middle price categories are also much cheaper. However, high-quality lenses can be purchased much more cheaply than here. Haggling over the price is possible in branded shops, but is unlikely to be successful with high-quality goods. The wide-angle attachments mentioned are initially offered for the equivalent of 300 euros, but despite clear lack of interest, the price is reduced to 80 euros by the time you leave the shop. A 77mm lens cap for Nikon (not from Nikon), however, cost 16 euros in 2013, no bargaining possible.

 

Shopping centers/shopping malls

Times Square, MTR Causeway Bay, Times Square exit. Large and elegant mall with many shops and boutiques in the mid-price range. On the top floor is one of the largest bookstores in Hong Kong (Page One).
Sogo, MTR Causeway Bay, Sogo exit. Japanese department store in Causeway Bay and Tsim Sha Shui. On nine floors you can find all kinds of everyday items and textiles.
Wan Chai Computer Center, MTR Wan Chai. Although technical accessories are often not cheaper than in Europe, buying in Hong Kong can still be worthwhile, as some products are on the market earlier in Asia. In the Wan Chai Computer Center you can find countless small computer and electronics stores that are cheaper than the overpriced counterparts on Nathan Road.
Harbour City, Canton Road, MTR Tsim Sha Tsui, or by Star Ferry. Huge shopping center in Tsim Sha Tsui.
Pacific Place
Festival Walk
Landmark, Pedder Street, MTR Central. The shopping mall in Central specializes in the upper price segment. Almost all important designers have their branches here: Gucci, Dior, Fendi, Vuitton, etc.
Wing Shing Photo Supplies Co. Ltd., Mongkok Kowloon, – MTR Mongkok. A reputable, good photo shop with fixed, affordable prices and a very good selection.

 

Supermarkets

Wellcome. Cheap supermarket chain, available almost everywhere.
Park'n'Shop. Cheap supermarket chain, available almost everywhere.
City Super. Expensive supermarket with many Japanese and European products.
Great, MTR station Admiralty, Pacific Place exit. Expensive supermarket with many Japanese and European products, fresh sushi, juices.

 

Street markets

Ladies' Market, Tung Choi Street, MTR Mongkok. One of the largest street markets, which mainly sells clothing, but also souvenirs, household items and CDs. The market starts around midday and runs until the evening.
Flower Market.
Goldfish Market, Tung Choi Street, MTR Prince Edward. A whole street with an incredible number of fish and accessories.
Birds Market. Along with ornamental fish, birds are the most popular pets in the narrow Hong Kong area. A large selection of various ornamental birds can be found at the Birds Market. MTR Prince Edward Station, exit “Mong Kok Police Station.” Walk east along Prince Edward Road West to the Yuen Po Street Bird Garden.
Jade Market, on Kansu Street. MTR Jordan or Yau Ma Tei. Open: daily 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Lanes in Central, Li Yuen Street East and Li Yuen Street West, between Des Veux Road Central and Queens Road Central, near the escalator. Here you can buy bags, belts, Chinese clothes, fabrics, watches, etc.
Cat Street, near Hollywood Road opposite Ma On Temple. Here you can find Chinese porcelain, wooden necklaces, Mao souvenirs and lots of knick-knacks that are perfect as souvenirs.
Argyle Center. Shopping center for young, affordable fashion. Lots of small shops and almost always incredibly busy, but doesn't open until around 12 noon. Take the "Argyle Center" exit from MTR Mong Kok station.
Temple Street Night Market. Certainly the most touristy market in Hong Kong. The stalls are set up from midday, but it doesn't get really busy until dusk. Ideal for buying souvenirs and gifts. MTR Jordan, follow Jordan Street west and turn left into Woo Sung Street.

 

Label Shops

Nike Shop 402, 4/F, Old Wing Sogo Department Store, Hennessy Road, Causeway Bay. Tel: +852 2895-5668.
Shop G33 & G34, Park Lane Shopper's Boulevard, 145 Nathan Rd. Tel: +852 2377-9660.
Shop 36 & 40, Manning House, 48 Queen's Road Central. Tel: +852 2526-7620.
Shop 2612, Level 2, Gateway Arcade, Harbor City TST. Tel: +852 2895-5912.

Tommy Hilfiger Shop OT 302, Level 3, Ocean Terminal, Harbor City, Kowloon.
Shop 2615-16, 2/F., Harbor City, Kowloon. Tommy Jeans & Girl.
Shop SK 312, B3 Hong Kong Seibu, The Kowloon Hotel TST, Kowloon.
Shop SK 202, B2 Hong Kong Seibu, The Kowloon Hotel TST, Kowloon.
Shop 104A, Level 1, Hong Kong Seibu, Parcific Place. Tommy Jeans & Girl.
Unit LG1-09, Festival Walk, 80 Tat Chee Avenue, Kowloon.
Shop B19, 1st Basemant Floor, The Landmark, Cental.
Shop 210B, Level 2, Hong Kong Seibu, Parcific Place.
Shop 317, 3/F., Time Square, Causeway Bay.
Shop 5-04, 5/F, Jumbo Sogo, Causeway Bay.
Shop 3-05, 3/F, Jumbo Sogo, Causeway Bay. Tommy Jeans & Girl.
Shop 274, 2/f., Cityplaza, Taikoo Shing.
Shop 381, Level 3, Phase 1, New Town Plaza, Shatin, New Territories.
Shop SL228, Level 2, Hong Kong Seibu, Langham Place, 8 Argyle Street, Kowloon. Tommy Jeans & Girl.
Shop SE136-137, Level 1, Hong Kong Seibu, Parcific Place. Tommy Kids.
Oklay Service Frontside LTD, 8/F, Sands Building, 17 Hankow Road, Tsimshatsui, Kowloon, Hong Kong. Tel: +852 2792-0353.

 

Eat

There are many cheap restaurants in Hong Kong, but in the upper price ranges there is almost no upper limit, especially when it comes to European food. Traditional Cantonese cuisine takes some getting used to because of its spices. You can try it in the many small street restaurants in the evening, especially in Kowloon. Cantonese duck and shumai are well-known and quite tasty. Many small restaurants also offer Chinese food. If you don't like that, you can choose something from all the cuisines of the world.

Fast food lovers will find McDonalds, Mos Burger and KFC on every corner and even Bubba Shrimps on the Peak. The Café de Coral chain offers slightly better fast food, which serves Chinese food at unbeatably low prices. Due to the large number of Filipino guest workers, Jollibee is also represented in the MTR Central Station.

Tip: Café One has an unbeatable buffet every evening (MTR Causeway Bay, 310 Gloucester Rd., in the Park Lane Hotel building). If you've always wanted to eat your fill of lobster, crab, shrimp, sashimi and delicacies from all regions of Asia, you can do it here. You can also enjoy a great view over Victoria Park. For the equivalent of EUR 40 per person, you get something here that is unrivalled in Hong Kong. Due to the high demand for the low price, a reservation in advance is mandatory (cafeone@parklane.com.hk).

There is an almost unbelievable range of seafood in the village Lei Yue Mun Seafood District. Here, dozens of small restaurants line up along the harbor basin and offer practically everything that wriggles in the sea for consumption. The size of the lobsters, fish and shrimp is probably unmatched anywhere in the world. The displays are a feast for the senses, even for those who don't want to eat there. Yau Tong MRT station, go to the right through the bus station and walk about 10 minutes down to the left side of the harbor.

For those who love sweet things: You should definitely try the coconut milk, which is offered in various places, especially in Kowloon. Fresh coconut is pureed with milk and syrup and served on ice. Fresh fruit can also be added for flavor if desired. For ice cream lovers, the inconspicuous Gourmet Dessert Cafe in Yau Ma Tei, right next to MTR exit C, is recommended. From flambéed ice cream to water ice with red beans and herb jelly, there is everything. Gourmet Dessert Cafe
If you want to have breakfast around the clock, you can do so excellently in the Flying Pan (G/F 9 Old Bailey Street, Central, Hong Kong) diagonally opposite the old prison. The shop is open 24 hours / 7 days a week. In addition, the prices are moderate and there are, for example, egg dishes in all variations (tip: the omelette "The Kitchen Sink").

A restaurant that is largely ignored by tourists is located in Kowloon directly behind the Chungking Mansions. Even if you are standing right in front of it, you don't immediately notice that you are in front of a busy restaurant. It is very busy all day long, often with whole families. You are "seated" like in the GDR. There is a menu with large, colored pictures, without which it would be difficult to order anything. Only a few employees speak broken English, but you can communicate just fine with gestures. The food is brought to your table by the respective chef, you are asked if that is correct, they explain a little in Chinese. Drinks are included. You pay at the exit, usually with a credit card. A very sumptuous menu with all the trimmings cost the equivalent of 21 euros for two in summer 2013.

 

Night life

Lan Kwai Fong. A very popular nightlife area for Europeans near the Central MTR station. A street lined with many small bars and clubs, but the real life takes place on the car-free streets, especially at the top end of D'Aguilar Street. Hundreds of night owls meet there every weekend. A classic is a photo in front of the Lan Kwai Fong street sign.
Wan Chai

The red light district on Hong Kong Island. But there are also many normal bars here - from classic Irish pubs to bars with regular live bands. The district's main focus is Lockhart Road and Jaffe Road between the two MTR stations Wan Chai and Admiralty.
Biergarten, 5 Hanoi Road Tsim Sha Tsui Hong Kong. German bar.
Bit Point, 31 D'Aguilar Street Central Hong Kong. German beers galore, G/F.
ICC/The Ritz-Carlton, 1 Austin Rd W, Hong Kong.

If you have deeper pockets, we recommend a visit to the Ritz Carlton bar in the ICC. The Ozone advertises itself as the highest bar in the world. Prices are high, cocktails can be ordered from 150 HKD. On a clear day, you can enjoy a spectacular view of Hong Kong. At weekends, you can expect to wait. Smart clothing is important, shorts are not appreciated. Private functions are also often held here, which are already posted in the elevator lobby on the 9th floor. A table requires a minimum consumption of 1000 HK$. Take the elevator from the lobby to the Ritz-Carlton reception on the 103rd floor and then take the elevator marked "Ozone" to the right of the elevators to the hotel rooms.

 

Hotels

In the upscale segment, travelers will find a very large selection. Hotel rooms in Hong Kong are more expensive than in Europe, but are usually smaller.

For travelers on a smaller budget, the so-called Chungking Mansions in Tsim Sha Tsui (MRT Tsim Sha Tsui, exit D1 or N2) are a good option. This is a building complex of five high-rise buildings with dozens of cheap hostels and smaller shops and snack bars on the lower two floors. The rooms are usually clean and very cheap. Tourists usually have three to four windowless square meters at their disposal, plus a shower with toilet, AC and TV. A report from the Chungking Mansions in 2013 shows that first impressions can be deceptive. Fair prices start (Oct. 2016) at around HK$ 130, but negotiating the prices asked is essential (seasonally -30-40%).

 

Safety

Hong Kong is a relatively safe city. Crime does exist, but luggage and wallets are more at risk than life and limb. At the airport and in crowded places, you should not let your luggage and valuables out of your sight. A money belt or breast pocket can prevent pickpocketing. Caution is also advised in dormitories in youth hostels. Hong Kong is also considered unproblematic and safe for women traveling alone. The emergency number is 999.

CBD has been considered a "dangerous drug" in Hong Kong since February 2023, and importing and possessing it carries drastic fines and prison sentences.

The Chinese police have the right to stop "suspicious-looking" people at any time and check their papers. If you do not have them with you, there is a risk of a search.

 

Health

Apart from the Chungking Mansions and other very cheap accommodations, Hong Kong is consistently of Western standards with high hygiene and health standards. Vaccinations are not required for Hong Kong. The addresses of German-speaking doctors can be obtained from the consulates. Tap water is drinkable, but it doesn't taste very good due to the high chlorine content. Still water can be bought very cheaply in the supermarket or there are 0.5l bottles from free-standing vending machines in MRT and shopping centers for 5.50 HKD ≈ 0.50€. In the summer heat, you should definitely drink plenty of water and stay in the shade more often.

 

Practical tips

Telecommunications

(Prices Oct. 2016)
International dialing code for HK: +852...

 

SIM cards

Various prepaid SIM cards are available at 7-11, including the branch at the airport. Top-ups from all companies are possible at the cash registers in the numerous “convenience stores”, a minimum of HK$ 50 is usual. With some tariffs, local calls between 12pm and 9pm are significantly more expensive. With most operators, the person called also pays the local per-minute price! Cards expire 180 days after the last top-up.

The Discover Hong Kong Tourist SIM Card is offered by the tourist office in conjunction with the provider PCCW/csl. It is available for 5 (HK$ 88) or 8 days (HK$ 118). During this time, local calls are free, plus 1.5 GB of data volume via the PCCW hotspots, which are considered slow, and HK$ 25 credit for international calls. The cards can be extended by up to 180 days by topping up and can also be used in Taiwan, Macao and Shenzhen for the comparatively high daily price of HK$ 40. The disadvantage is that the number received is lost forever after expiry.
The One2Free Power Prepaid SIM from csl is interesting for customers who want to make calls in the nearby Asian region and North America. Local calls cost HK$ 0.25/min., SMS in the csl network HK$ 0.10, other networks HK$ 0.70; international calls to certain countries are free. Data volume must be booked (hotspot overview).
China Mobile 4G/3G Data & Voice Prepaid SIM Card: $HK$ 80, local calls HK$ 0.10, Internet “3G lite” (max. 384 k/s) HK$ 30 for 10 days.
The China Unicom Cross Border King for HK$ 120 comes with two numbers, one for HK, the other for China (area code +86...). Calls cost HK$ 0.45/min, data is expensive HK$ 35 for 100 Mb.
With the 3 Hong Kong 3G Super Value Monthly Fee Rechargeable SIM Card for HK$ 98 you can add HK$ 68,680 free minutes per month, otherwise local calls cost HK$ 0.3.

 

Post

The state-run Hong Kong Post (tariff overview) charges HK$ 2.30 for aerograms; Airmail letters (up to 20g) to Western Europe (Zone 2) HK$ 3.70, large formats HK$ 3.80, HK$ 1.60 for every 10g more. Registered mail HK$ 15.50 extra.

General Post Office, Hong Kong, Central, 康樂廣場2號 (2 Connaught Pl.). In the basement with a small museum and philatelist counter. Open: 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. (Sun. + public holidays 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.).
Kowloon Central Post Office, 405 Nathan Rd, Yau Ma Tei. Open: Mon.-Fri. 9.30 a.m. to 6 p.m., Sat. until 1.30 p.m.

 

Electricity

The electrical voltage in Hong Kong is 220 V at 50 Hz, which is roughly equivalent to the German system. However, the sockets are type G (have three holes) and a corresponding adapter is required. These are available for under 10 HKD at many market stalls or in the electrical shop chain pricerite. Many accommodations already provide adapters in their rooms.

 

Laundromats

Laundromats with vending machines are not often found in Hong Kong, such as those in the waterlaundry.com chain (24 hours, map on website). Instead, there are relatively cheap laundries in most residential areas, for example on Staunton Street in Soho. Normal laundry is washed by weight, the basic price is around 30 HKD and allows around 3.5kg of laundry. The laundry can be picked up after drying for a few hours.

 

Public toilets

In Hong Kong, there are public toilets in many places, e.g. in parks or on busy routes, and especially in the large shopping centers. Both the facilities and the hygienic conditions vary considerably. While the toilets in public spaces are generally of the same standard as those found in German motorway car parks and are therefore usually at the lower end of the scale in terms of hygiene, most washrooms in large shopping centres are cleaned practically continuously (sometimes even after every visitor) and, in addition to being impeccably clean, offer some astonishing design qualities (the toilets in the IFC Mall in particular are very modern and sometimes even have a shoe-shine machine). For this reason, the toilets in shopping centres should definitely be preferred. The toilets in the relevant fast-food chains are often not in optimal condition. The standing toilets (which are more reminiscent of a shower tray with integrated platforms for resting your feet), which take a lot of getting used to for Europeans, are usually only found in public washrooms (for example on the beaches). However, as in shopping centres, there is usually at least one toilet that meets European standards.

 

Representatives

The Consulate General of the Republic of Austria (Central). Tel.: +852 2522 80 86, Fax: +852 2521 87 73, E-Mail: hongkong-gk@bmeia.gv.at.
Swiss Consulate General, Suite 6206-07, Central Plaza, 18 Harbour Road (Wan Chai). Tel.: +852 2522 7174, Fax: +852 2845 2619, E-Mail: hon.vertretung@eda.admin.ch.
Consulate General of the Federal Republic of Germany, United Centre, 21st floor, 95 Queensway-Central. Tel.: +852 21 05 87 77, Fax: +852 28 65 20 33, E-Mail: germancg@netvigator.com.

 

Language

The official languages ​​are Cantonese, Mandarin and English. Cantonese is a southern Chinese dialect that is very different from Mandarin. Even in the days of the British crown colony, the proportion of English speakers among the population was surprisingly low. Outside of the tourist centers in Tsim Sha Tsui or Central Hong Kong Island, communication with the locals can be difficult. You may have to get out of a taxi after realizing that the driver does not know the English names of the districts of Hong Kong. Nevertheless, Hong Kong is certainly one of the easier cities to travel in East Asia in terms of communication.

Since the return of Hong Kong, the English language has continued to decline. The reason for this is the abolition of compulsory English lessons in schools and the migration of industry to mainland China. In addition, the Chinese administration is strongly promoting Mandarin, although only a small proportion of Hong Kong Chinese speak Mandarin as their mother tongue. For example, MTR announcements are now made in Mandarin first. In the long term, Mandarin will probably establish itself as a second foreign language alongside English, at the expense of English.

Street signs, public announcements, some TV programs, etc. are almost entirely bilingual. However, many small restaurants outside of tourist centers only have Chinese menus.

 

Excursions

Macao. 50 minutes by high-speed ferry from Hong Kong on the other side of the Pearl River Delta lies Macao, the former Portuguese colony. The small city is a unique mixture of the flashy Las Vegas, the quiet, old Lisbon and Chinese cities. It is easy to explore on foot and is an attractive contrast to chaotic Hong Kong. You can also travel on to China from here. In addition to the casinos in the south of the peninsula, the old colonial buildings from the Portuguese past are particularly worth seeing. In a hotel, buildings and canals from Venice have been recreated under a roof and with air conditioning. Here in "Venice" you can spend your money in various boutiques. Be careful: Hong Kong dollars and Chinese yuen are often accepted as payment here, but the Pataca Macaos can usually no longer be exchanged even in banks in Hong Kong! Shenzhen. The special economic zone north of Hong Kong is the epitome of the region's unlimited economic growth. There are two theme parks here. In one there are miniatures of famous Chinese buildings and replicas of traditional houses of the country's various ethnic groups, who present themselves here in their traditional costumes. The second park shows famous buildings from all over the world and is more interesting for Chinese tourists who would like to see the Eiffel Tower or the Statue of Liberty in New York. To enter Shenzhen you need an entry visa for the People's Republic. If you book a day trip in a group from Hong Kong at a travel agency, the organizer will take care of the formalities.
Guangzhou. Not far up the Pearl River is Guangzhou (Canton), the capital of Guangdong Province. Travel agencies also offer organized day trips to Guangzhou.

 

History

Prehistoric Period

According to archaeological research, people have lived in this region for approximately 5,000 years. Neolithic artifacts indicate the influence of northern Chinese Stone Age cultures such as the Longshan culture. Certain stone engravings are dated to the Bronze Age (Shang Dynasty). Artifacts from the 6th to 3rd centuries BC (Warring States Period) show cultural affinities with neighboring Guangdong.

 

Chinese Empire

During the Han Dynasty, the area of ​​present-day Hong Kong was settled by Han Chinese. During the Tang Dynasty, the region around Guangzhou was a major trading center, and the region of Hong Kong and present-day Shenzhen served as a port. The first major migration from northern China began during the Song Dynasty.

After the Yuan Dynasty took power over Hong Kong as a result of the Mongol Wars, immigration from the north increased, but the region remained relatively isolated and lived from fishing and pearl farming. In 1517, the Portuguese trader Fernão Pires de Andrade landed on the southern Chinese coast, probably in Hong Kong, where several larger settlements are documented at that time.

After the fall of the Ming Dynasty, the region of present-day Hong Kong fell to the Xin'an district (新安縣, Xīn’ān Xiàn, Jyutping San on Jyun).

 

British crown colony

In 1699, the British East India Company first arrived in China. In 1711, a permanent trading base was established in Guangzhou. The British introduction of opium into China led to the First Opium War and the occupation of Hong Kong in 1841. A year later, China had to officially cede the territory to the United Kingdom with the Treaty of Nanjing. In 1843, Great Britain declared Hong Kong a British crown colony, which was then administered by a governor. In addition to the extraterritorial status as a treaty port, Great Britain acquired further territories in China through the so-called "unequal treaties". The Chinese government was forced to lease port cities to Great Britain, France, Russia, Germany and Japan for between 25 and 99 years. In this way, Great Britain gained Kowloon (Beijing Convention 1860), the New Territories (1898 Convention on the Extension of Hong Kong Territory), Weihaiwei (1898) and another 235 islands for 99 years.

For the British Empire, Hong Kong developed into an important military base and exchange point in East Asia. Hundreds of thousands of cheap Chinese workers were forcibly brought to Hong Kong to build up and expand industry. From the middle of the 19th century to the beginning of the 20th century, the city developed into the second most important transshipment point in the illegal coolie trade after Macau, causing the population to rise from 33,000 to 879,000 between 1851 and 1931, 95 percent of whom were Chinese.

For a long time, the colony remained in the shadow of the larger Shanghai, where Great Britain also occupied extraterritorial territories until 1949. The colonial powers achieved enormously profitable added value through the rigorous exploitation of all natural and human resources. The British colonialists in particular reduced wage costs throughout China, as well as in India, Singapore and other parts of the former British Empire, through child labor.

As early as 1899, a year before the Boxer Rebellion, the Chinese rebelled against the occupying power in Hong Kong. The reason for this was the construction of the railway from Kowloon to Canton (Guangzhou), through which Great Britain attempted to expand its influence to other Chinese territories. All uprisings were bloodily suppressed. The greatest unrest since the May Fourth Movement (1919 to 1924) broke out in 1925 after the May 30th Massacre, when British police forces used firearms at an anti-colonial demonstration in Shanghai and killed several Chinese students. The massacre was the start of one of the largest mass movements in China. Protests spread like wildfire across the entire country and culminated in the 16-month Canton-Hong Kong Strike.

During this strike, the National People's Party of China (Kuomintang) and the Communist Party of China (CCP) united for the first time in a united front. All Chinese in Hong Kong were called upon to stop work, boycott English goods and leave the city. In the first week of the economic blockade, 50,000 Chinese left Hong Kong, and another 250,000 followed at the end of July. According to contemporary witnesses, Hong Kong resembled a ghost town between August and December 1925. The Canton Hong Kong strike permanently weakened Britain's economic and political influence in China.

 

Second World War and post-war period

Immediately after the outbreak of the Second World War in East Asia, Hong Kong was attacked by the Japanese army under the leadership of Sakai Takashi. The Battle of Hong Kong lasted two and a half weeks, during which the British had to hand the city over to the Japanese. The Japanese occupation of Hong Kong ended with the surrender of Japan on August 16, 1945.

Although Great Britain had promised the Republic of China in 1943 that it would give up all unequal contracts and privileges in the ports on the Chinese coast, the British broke their promise to declare the forced lease invalid after the end of the war. A race for control of Hong Kong now began: Chiang Kai-shek had underground fighters smuggled into Hong Kong to take over the city after the Japanese withdrew. However, Winston Churchill had already sent a naval squadron to China, which arrived in Victoria Harbor on August 30, 1945. Great Britain thus restored its control over Hong Kong.

Chiang Kai-shek then made the statement that attracted much attention at the time: "The Chinese people and their government, whether nationalists or communists, can never accept a forced agreement that violates China's territorial and administrative integrity."

At the end of the Second World War, Hong Kong was largely destroyed. After the People's Republic of China was declared in 1949, hundreds of thousands of Kuomintang supporters also fled to Hong Kong, and many foreign companies moved their offices from Shanghai to Hong Kong.

 

Difficult relations

The economic embargo imposed by the USA and its allies against the People's Republic of China in the early 1950s also had a negative impact on trade and reconstruction in Hong Kong. It was only after the sanctions were lifted that Hong Kong experienced an unprecedented boom and developed into one of the strongest economies in the world.

At the beginning of the 1960s, resistance to British colonial rule grew again due to great social inequalities. Tensions reached their peak during the unrest in Hong Kong in 1967, with many deaths and injuries.

After the death of Mao Zedong, his successor Deng Xiaoping began to open China's economy to foreign countries through special economic zones such as Shenzhen, which borders Hong Kong to the north. Since the 1980s, almost all manufacturing companies have moved from Hong Kong to China. The city has developed into a pure trade and service center.

 

Negotiations on reintegration

In 1982, talks began between the Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom and the People's Republic of China about the future of the territory. The British side, under Margaret Thatcher, had originally hoped that the policy of opening up China might lead to China accepting British rule over the territory. The opposite was the case: the People's Republic of China insisted not only on the return of the territory leased for 99 years, but also on the complete return of the territories forcibly ceded in the Treaty of Nanking. This position was shared by the Republic of China (Taiwan). Independently, the return of Hong Kong had already been confirmed ten years earlier by a resolution of the United Nations General Assembly.

Deng Xiaoping developed the doctrine known as One Country, Two Systems. This doctrine paved the way for the Sino-British Joint Declaration on Hong Kong, signed between the People's Republic of China and the United Kingdom on December 19, 1984. It stipulated that Hong Kong would become a Special Administrative Region (SAR) of China on July 1, 1997. In July 1989, Hong Kong citizens were officially informed by the British government that they were not entitled to permanent residency in Great Britain despite having a British passport. At the end of 1993, Sino-British talks on Hong Kong broke off for a short time after 17 rounds of negotiations because there was disagreement about the introduction of the future right to vote for the newly established Hong Kong Legislative Council. In June 1994, the incumbent governor, Lord Chris Patten, issued a decree establishing the future electoral system.

 

Chinese Special Administrative Region

On July 1, 1997, after 156 years of British colonial rule, the People's Republic of China assumed sovereignty and control over Hong Kong. Hong Kong became a special administrative region with a high, but recently decreasing, degree of autonomy in all political areas, except foreign and defense policy, according to the principle of one country, two systems. The first Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region was Tung Chee-hwa.

Various measures by the Chinese central government to gradually undermine this autonomy led to the Umbrella Movement in 2014 and sustained mass protests from 2019 onwards.

The People's Republic of China is exerting direct influence on Hong Kong with the Hong Kong Security Law ("National Security Law"), which came into force on June 30, 2020. This gives Chinese security forces powers in Hong Kong. Britain then announced in 2020 that up to 5.4 million people from Hong Kong could be granted a five-year residence permit in Great Britain, which would then enable them to become citizens. Applications for residency in the UK began to be accepted in February 2021. A few hours later, China announced that it would no longer recognize the British National (Overseas) passport (BNO passport) as a travel document and proof of identity in China. In January 2021, 350,000 Hong Kong residents held a BNO passport. By September of the same year, 88,000 Hong Kong residents had applied for British citizenship. From 2021 to June 2024, 150,400 people from Hong Kong emigrated to the UK with a BNO passport.

 

Culture

Cuisine

The local cuisine of Hong Kong is part of Cantonese cuisine and is therefore very similar to it in comparison. It is mainly spiced with herbs, very spicy dishes are less common. A unique feature of Chinese cuisine is the prevalence of (sweet) desserts; this is a custom that is rather unknown in the rest of China. Dim sum, served for breakfast, lunch or Chinese afternoon tea, is very popular. Shopping for groceries for daily needs is traditionally done in so-called wet markets (街市), which in Chinese culture today naturally exist alongside modern supermarkets based on the Western model in the various towns and districts of Hong Kong.

The restaurant landscape is very international, in addition to specialties from all regions of China, there are numerous Japanese, Korean, Indian, Southeast Asian and European restaurants, as well as East-West fusion cuisine. This is precisely why Hong Kong is considered a culinary paradise among connoisseurs, as a large number of top international cuisines can be found in a very small area. The great influence of Western fast food and coffee house chains on the local food culture is also obvious.

 

Architecture

When the crown colony was founded, Hong Kong consisted of just a few fishing villages with no notable architectural achievements. The area had no significance within the Chinese empire. The ruling British then built a city with colonial architecture, with Chinese influences limited to the residential areas of the Chinese inhabitants.

The rapid population growth since the beginning of the 20th century has meant that housing had to be created in a hurry for the new immigrants. This has been organized by the colonial administration since the 1950s. The result of these hasty construction measures were unsightly buildings with poor facilities, some of which still exist today. On the other hand, the economic boom and the sharp rise in property prices led to the demolition of many colonial buildings, which were then replaced by high-rise buildings. Not much of the opulent architecture of the turn of the century remains. Compared to Xiamen, Qingdao, Macau or especially Shanghai, almost nothing of Hong Kong's European pre-war buildings has survived. The Anglican St. John's Cathedral, the former Supreme Court, built in 1912 and now the seat of the Court of Final Appeal (Legislative Council of Hong Kong from 1985 to 2011), and the former French residence were not demolished.

Traditional Chinese influences are rarely evident in the city's modern architecture. The rules of Feng Shui are usually observed when designing and constructing buildings, including modern office buildings, because these rules are taken very seriously by many of the people who live and work in such buildings and by their customers. One example of this is the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank. The reasons for taking Feng Shui into account are at least pragmatic: regardless of the builders' attitude to Feng Shui, violations of these rules would reduce the number of potential buyers for the building when they intend to sell.

 

Museums

In the Kowloon district of Tsim Sha Tsui, right next to the Star Ferry terminal, is the Hong Kong Cultural Centre with a concert hall, galleries and the Hong Kong Museum of Art, which focuses on Chinese works. Right next door is the Hong Kong Space Museum with a virtual planetarium. A few blocks north are the Hong Kong Museum of History and the Hong Kong Science Museum, both of which have a very modern presentation.

The Lei Cheng Uk Han Tomb Museum in Sham Shui Po was built after a tomb from the Han Dynasty was discovered during construction work in 1955. This is the most important excavation in Hong Kong and proof that the peninsula has been inhabited for at least 2,000 years. The Sam Tung Uk Museum in Tsuen Wan is a replica of a Hakka settlement surrounded by a round wall, like the settlements that existed in the New Territories until the 1970s.

On Hong Kong Island in Hong Kong Park is the Museum of Tea Ware, which is housed in Flagstaff House, the oldest surviving colonial building, and exhibits around 3,000 objects documenting the history of tea in China. The Hong Kong Heritage Museum in Sha Tin presents topics on the history of Hong Kong and its culture in several permanent and traveling exhibitions. The Hong Kong Maritime Museum is located on Pier 8 in Victoria Harbour.

Pure art collections are the Art Museum of the Chinese University and the University Museum and Art Gallery of the University of Hong Kong. The Tsui Museum of Art exhibited a private collection, but is now closed. Parts of the collection have been loaned to other museums for exhibition. The city government and the Chinese Ministry of Culture and Tourism opened the Hong Kong Palace Museum (HKPM) in early July 2022 in the West Kowloon Cultural District on the west coast of Kowloon in the Special Administrative Region. It is the third palace museum of its kind, alongside the original Palace Museum in Beijing and the sister museum (National Palace Museum) in Taipei, which was created during the civil war.

 

Leisure and recreation

Between its skyscrapers, Hong Kong has a number of parks that are very well-kept and clean. The largest and most famous are Hong Kong Park and the Zoological-Botanical Garden in Central, right next to Hong Kong's financial center. In Hong Kong Park, the oldest colonial building in the territory, the Flagstaff House, is located. In Causeway Bay, there is the 19-hectare Victoria Park, for which land in Victoria Harbor was reclaimed.

In the south of Kowloon lies Kowloon Park, and in the north is Kowloon Walled City Park with the remains of the old Walled City. Large temple complexes such as the Wong Tai Sin Temple, the Chi Lin Nunnery in Kowloon or the 10,000 Buddha Monastery and other temples in the hinterland offer not only religious temple halls but also places with well-kept green areas or Chinese rock gardens with statues. What all public parks have in common is that they are frequented by locals in the early morning who practice Taijiquan or early morning exercise there. In the New Territories, in the northwest of the special administrative region, lies the Hong Kong Wetland Park nature reserve, which has been open to visitors since 2006 and is visited by around 440,000 people and guests from near and far every year.

In addition to the numerous public nature and recreation parks, such as the Hong Kong UNESCO Global Geopark (香港世界地質公園) near Sai Kung, which is part of the UNESCO Global Geoparks Network, there are two commercial amusement parks in Hong Kong. One is the Ocean Park Hong Kong in the south of Hong Kong Island, which has a walk-in, four-story marine aquarium, a dolphinarium with dolphin and orca shows, penguins, seals, pandas, bird houses, several roller coasters and other attractions, attracting several million visitors every year. The other is Hong Kong Disneyland in Penny Bay, on the northeastern tip of Lantau Island, which opened on September 12, 2005. It is a Disney theme park with over 30 attractions, several hotels, various restaurants and shops.

In addition to the business centers, which are mainly populated by consumer-oriented locals seeking relaxation or shopping tourists, or are residential areas for the rich, Hong Kong also has tranquil, low-density areas that serve local residents and tourist guests for relaxation and leisure. With its 800 kilometers of coastline and over 235 islands and islets, Hong Kong offers many hiking and fitness trails, thousands of barbecue areas and numerous camping sites that attract over 15 million visitors every year.

Cycling and roller skating in the city parks as well as mountain biking, kite flying or paragliding in the 24 nature parks (郊野公園, English country park) are mostly prohibited due to the large number of people who visit these parks for recreation. The numerous hiking routes with varying levels of difficulty are spread throughout Hong Kong. The most popular hiking routes include the Wilson Trail (50 km), the MacLehose Trail (100 km), the Lantau Trail (70 km) and the Hong Kong Trail (50 km). The flora and fauna include 400 tree species, 250 butterfly species, more than 30 coral species and over 100 freshwater fish species.

 

Festivals and events

For the residents of Hong Kong, both Western and Chinese festivals are very important. The dates of Chinese festivals are calculated according to the Chinese lunar calendar and therefore move around in the Gregorian calendar.

One of the most important festivals is the Chinese New Year, which falls in January or February. Two weeks later there is the Lantern Festival (also known as Chinese Valentine's Day). Other important festivals are the Qingming Festival, the Dragon Boat Festival, the Moon Festival, the Daoist Ghost Festival, known to Buddhists as the Ullambana Festival, and the Chongyang Festival. Only on the island of Cheung Chau is the Daoist Cheung Chau Da Jiu Festival celebrated annually, colloquially known as the "Cheung Chau Bun Festival" ("Cheung Chau Dumpling Festival"), during which thousands of Chinese filled dumplings are steamed and piled up in a pyramid in a large festival setting.

The Hong Kong government tries to arouse cultural interest among its residents and attract tourists to the city with various events. These include the Hong Kong Arts Festival, which takes place every year from February to March, to which top-class artists and orchestras are invited and which also provides a stage for local artists. The Hong Kong Food Festival, which takes place every year from February to March, is aimed specifically at Asian tourists for whom tasting local specialties is an indispensable part of every trip. The Asian Arts Festival is largely in the same vein as the Hong Kong Arts Festival, but only takes place every other year in October. The Hong Kong International Film Festival is also held every year from March to April.

Regular cultural events outside of the festivals take place at the Academy for Performing Arts and Arts Centre, in the Hong Kong City Hall and the Hong Kong Cultural Centre. These are mainly concerts, theatre performances and traditional Cantonese operas.

 

Nightlife

Hong Kong offers a rich selection of pubs, discos, clubs and restaurants. Western-oriented establishments are mainly located in Lan Kwai Fong and SoHo in Central and on Lockhart Road in Wan Chai. Typically Asian establishments that are mostly frequented by locals and less by tourists, such as clubs, karaoke bars or mahjong schools, are more likely to be found in districts of the Kowloon Peninsula such as Mongkok, Yau Ma Tei and Sham Shui Po, and occasionally on the tourist and shopping mile of Tsim Sha Tsui.

Every evening, the Symphony of Lights light show takes place at Victoria Harbour, which can sometimes be seen from the Avenue of Stars.

 

Films

Hong Kong is considered a film metropolis. More than 4,000 films have already been produced in Hong Kong.

The first Hong Kong film was Zhuangzi Examines His Wife (Zhuangzi shi qi) from 1913. In the turmoil of the Chinese Civil War, many directors, especially left-wing or socially committed ones, fled from the Kuomintang under Chiang Kai-shek to Hong Kong, which contributed significantly to Hong Kong's later importance as a film metropolis. Before that, it had been Shanghai. However, the film industry only developed significantly after the Second World War. Well-known directors include Wong Kar-Wai (2046, In the Mood for Love), King Hu (A Touch of Zen) and John Woo (A Better Tomorrow), well-known actors include Leslie Cheung (Days Of Being Wild, Farewell To My Concubine, Happy Together, A Better Tomorrow), Maggie Cheung (In the Mood for Love, Hero), Tony Leung Chiu Wai (2046, In The Mood For Love, Happy Together), Andy Lau (Infernal Affairs), Chow Yun-Fat (A Better Tomorrow, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) and Jackie Chan. Hong Kong films had a significant influence on the martial arts film genre.

During the 1990s, the Asian crisis also led to a decline in Hong Kong's film industry. During this time, many of those involved began to make more films in Hollywood, such as Jackie Chan, John Woo and Chow Yun-Fat. When two of the biggest film stars died in 2003, namely Leslie Cheung (on April 1st, suicide) and Anita Mui (in December, from the effects of cancer), some pessimists were already talking about the demise of the film metropolis of Hong Kong. To counter the crisis in the film industry, the Hong Kong government launched the Film Guarantee Fund (電影貸款保證基金) in April 2003. On the waterfront promenade in Tsim Sha Tsui, the Avenue of Stars shows the names of popular film stars on a star path. A film museum collects the works and also organizes events on old American and European films.

 

Cantopop

Cantopop is the abbreviation for Cantonese pop music, a form of music originating from Hong Kong that is successful in large parts of Asia beyond Hong Kong. Cantopop (or Hong Kong pop) arose from the mixture of traditional Chinese music with various Western musical styles (jazz, rock 'n' roll, rhythm and blues, electronic music, Western pop music). The lyrics are very important. The first big stars in the 1970s were Sam Hui and Roman Tam, often called the Godfather of Cantopop. As the name suggests, the language of Cantopop is actually Cantonese. However, some songs are also sung in English, Mandarin, Japanese, etc. The heyday of Cantopop was in the 1980s, with stars such as Alan Tam, Priscilla Chan, Anita Mui, Danny Chan and Leslie Cheung. In recent years, however, so-called Mandarin pop has become increasingly important (due to the opening of the People's Republic) and Mandopop singers such as Jay Chou from Taiwan are becoming successful in the Chinese-speaking world. The Cantopop and film industries are closely intertwined in Hong Kong. Many Cantopop singers are (or were) also successful actors (e.g. Leslie Cheung, Anita Mui, Faye Wong, Vivian Chow, Leon Lai, Deric Wan, Danny Chan, Andy Lau), and many Cantopop songs were composed for Hong Kong TV series or films.

 

Media

Basics

In the 2021 press freedom ranking published by Reporters Without Borders, Hong Kong ranked 80th out of 180 countries and territories.

 

Print media

Newspapers and magazines are available in both English and Chinese, with the latter making up the majority, and there are also some bilingual publications. In total, there are around 50 daily publications. All publishers are private, and there is no press funding system. The South China Morning Post and The Standard (both English), Ming Pao and Hong Kong Economic Journal (both Chinese) are considered reputable. However, the highest circulation is or was experienced by Apple Daily (which could no longer operate after the Chinese security law for Hong Kong was passed in 2021 because Jimmy Lai's assets were frozen) and Oriental Daily News (both Chinese).

There are also the two city magazines HK Magazine and Time Out Hong Kong, which focus on local topics and the city's lifestyle and provide information about upcoming events, films and the like. Foreign newspapers can be found in many places in Hong Kong.

 

Radio

Hong Kong has a relatively high number of radio stations, including one public broadcaster. However, this station, Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK), is not owned by the government and is not controlled by it; it has often been accused of being too critical of the government. Most stations broadcast in Chinese (mostly Cantonese, also known as Mandarin), some in English, and occasionally in Nepali and Urdu.

 

Television

All Hong Kong television stations are private, except for the only public broadcaster in Hong Kong, RTHK. There is both free private television and paid television. The stations are also popular in other Asian countries. The soaps and dramas produced for Hong Kong television are broadcast terrestrially or via satellite throughout the Chinese-speaking world. There are both pure web TV stations and offerings from traditional media streamed via the web as Internet television. All channels in the world can be received via satellite.

 

Sport

As a former British crown colony, Western sports arrived in Hong Kong earlier than in other cities in China. Cricket has a tradition in Hong Kong that goes back more than 170 years. The first recorded cricket match was in 1841, followed by the founding of one of the first cricket clubs outside England in 1851. The first sports club in Hong Kong was founded in 1849 and was the water sports club "Victoria Recreation Club". The first football club, the Hong Kong Football Club, was founded in 1886 and the Hong Kong Football Association in 1914. The Hong Kong First Division League, introduced in 1908, remained the city's highest football league until 2014, when the Hong Kong Premier League was introduced.

Hong Kong has its own National Olympic Committee, the Sports Federation and Olympic Committee of Hong Kong China, and has participated in the Summer Olympics with its own team since 1952 and the Winter Olympics since 2002. So far, athletes from Hong Kong have won two gold, three silver and four bronze medals each (as of 2020, see Hong Kong's Olympic history). Hong Kong has also participated in the Summer Paralympics since 1972, but the team has not yet competed in the Winter Paralympics. Special Olympics Hong Kong was founded in 1976 and has participated in the Special Olympics World Games several times.

Hong Kong's national football team already existed under British colonial rule and is currently ranked 169th in the FIFA world rankings. Horse racing has been taking place in Hong Kong since 1846. The Hong Kong Jockey Club, founded in 1884, organizes up to 700 horse races annually at the club's Happy Valley Racecourse and Sha Tin Racecourse. The Hong Kong Cycling Association was founded in 1960 to promote cycling in Hong Kong.

Rugby union is considered the second most popular sport in Hong Kong after football and is best known for its annual rugby sevens tournament, the Hong Kong Sevens. Hong Kong's national rugby union team is Asia's second best team after Japan and competes in the Asian Rugby Union Championships against other up-and-coming national teams. They have won five titles there, finishing second eight times and third 15 times. Hong Kong has so far failed to qualify for a Rugby World Cup.

Cricket is emerging as one of Hong Kong's most popular sports and since 1992 the Hong Kong Cricket Sixes has been played in 6-a-side cricket. Hong Kong's national cricket team is one of Asia's best teams outside of the ICC members with ODI status and in November 2013 Hong Kong was awarded T20I status along with the Netherlands. Hong Kong has so far failed to qualify for a Cricket World Cup and has participated in the T20 World Cup twice (2014, 2016), but has not progressed beyond the preliminary round.

Hong Kong has two cycling tracks, an open concrete track in Sha Tin and the Hong Kong Velodrome, which opened in 2013 and meets the standards of the world cycling association UCI, meaning that official international competitions can take place there.

Hong Kong has hosted several major sporting events. These include the 1956 Asian Football Championship, 1989 Hong Kong Open, Volleyball World Grand Prix (1993, 1998, 2002, 2015), East Asian Football Championship (1995), 2008 Summer Olympics in Equestrian, 2009 East Asian Games and 2014 Prudential Hong Kong Tennis Open.

Hong Kong hosts several local and international sporting competitions every year:
Hong Kong Sevens, the most famous tournament as part of the World Rugby Sevens Series, a series of competitions in sevens rugby
Hong Kong Squash Open, as part of the men's PSA World Tour Finals and the women's WSA World Series
Hong Kong Open (badminton), the Hong Kong international badminton championship
Hong Kong Open (golf), a golf tournament held on the Asian Tour
Hong Kong Cricket Sixes, an international cricket tournament in which twelve national teams compete against each other
Lunar New Year Cup, a football tournament in which a team made up of Hong Kong players competes against three international club teams.
Hong Kong Masters, a show jumping tournament that has been held since 2008
The historic swimming competition through Victoria Harbour, which was resumed in 2011 and took place from 1906 to 1979
Hong Kong Marathon over a distance of 42 km, with 72,000 participants in 2013
The Hong Kong Dragon Boat Carnival, a dragon boat festival across Victoria Harbour
Hong Kong E-Prix, a car race in the FIA ​​Formula E Championship since 2016.

 

Geography

Geographical location

Hong Kong is located at the mouth of the Pearl River in the South China Sea. The territory of Hong Kong extends over a very irregularly shaped peninsula and 263 islands, the most important of which are Lantau Island (147.2 km²), Hong Kong Island (78.6 km²), Chek Lap Kok (14.6 km²), Lamma Island (13.9 km²), Tsing Yi (10.7 km²), Cheung Chau (2.4 km²) and Peng Chau (1.2 km²). The territory is divided into Hong Kong Island, Kowloon, the New Territories and the Outlying Islands.

Of the 1114 km² land area, around 25% is built up. A significant part of the built-up area was created by land reclamation in Victoria Harbour and the New Territories. Since 1887, 68 km² of land area has been added as a result. This is mainly due to the very mountainous relief with many steep slopes; only in the north of the New Territories are there larger plains. The highest elevation is the Tai Mo Shan in the New Territories at 958 m. The better known is Victoria Peak, at 552 m the highest mountain on Hong Kong Island and a popular tourist destination. The 495 m high Lion Rock on the border between Kowloon and the New Territories is considered one of the most striking natural monuments and Hong Kong's local mountain.

 

Climate

Hong Kong's climate is subtropical humid with an annual average temperature of 22.5 °C, rainfall of 2,382.7 mm and 10 humid months. The winter from January to March is mild to warm and dry, the summer from April to September is hot and rainy, while the autumn (October to December) is warm and dry. In summer there is a regular risk of typhoons; A typhoon on September 18, 1906, accompanied by a tidal wave, claimed the lives of around 10,000 people.

 

Population

Population structure and numbers

The inhabitable territory of Hong Kong is one of the most densely populated areas in the world after Monaco with around 16,000 inhabitants per km², with the population density of the entire territory being around 6,900 inhabitants per km².

The population has roughly quadrupled in the last seven decades (from 1.7 million in 1945 to over 7.442 million in 2016) and increased a thousandfold in 160 years (from 7,500 in 1841). The number of children per woman is 1.19, the second lowest value in the world, ahead of Macau. Population growth has been declining sharply for 20 years: in 1996 it was 4.54 percent and fell to 0.56 percent by 2016.

The average life expectancy between 2010 and 2015 was 83.4 years (men: 80.3, women: 86.3), making it one of the highest in the world.

The immigration rate is declining: in 2002, it was estimated that 7.76 immigrants immigrated per 1,000 inhabitants, compared to 2.14 in 2016. Around 95 percent of the population are Han Chinese. More than 500,000 foreigners live in Hong Kong. Most of them come from the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, India and Pakistan. The majority of foreigners from the Philippines and Indonesia are women, who mostly work as domestic helpers.

Despite the high population density, Hong Kong is one of the greenest metropolitan regions in Asia, which in turn is due to the mountainous topography of the area. Much of the area is so mountainous and steep that it cannot be built on and is therefore covered with trees and bushes. The majority of the population lives in mostly very small apartments in high-rise buildings and skyscrapers; single-family homes are expensive and are rarely built due to the mountainous conditions and also for nature conservation reasons, since about 40% of Hong Kong's land area is designated as nature parks (郊野公園, jiāoyě gōngyuán, Jyutping gaau je gung jyun, English country park) and nature reserves (生態保育區, shēngtài bǎoyùqū, Jyutping sang taai bou juk keoi).

 

Languages

The two official languages ​​of Hong Kong are English and Chinese, although Chinese is not defined in detail in the relevant Article 9 of Chapter I of the Basic Law. The Cantonese language that is predominant in Hong Kong and Mandarin Chinese, also known as Standard Chinese, are thus officially regarded as one language in two variants, both of which are to be regarded as an official language of Hong Kong. Both variants of Chinese are written in the Chinese script. However, in Hong Kong, as in Macau and in contrast to other parts of the People's Republic, traditional long characters are used.

There are also characters that are only used in Hong Kong, which the Hong Kong government has summarized in the so-called Hong Kong Supplementary Character Set, abbreviated HKSCS, and regularly updates. Hong Kong Cantonese differs from Guangdong Cantonese in that, in addition to a large number of anglicisms, there is often a colloquial language switch between English and Chinese. English is widely understood. For historical reasons, English is not very widespread among the older population.

Mandarin Chinese is becoming more and more widespread due to increased integration with the mainland. After English, Japanese is the second most popular foreign language in Hong Kong. In contrast, French, Spanish, German and other European languages ​​have very little popularity among the general population.

 

Religion

Almost every religion is practiced in Hong Kong. Due to its British colonial history as a hub in Southeast Asia and gateway to China, people from different parts of the world and of different faiths who settled in Hong Kong have built their temples and places of worship here. Confucian, Taoist and Buddhist beliefs dominate the Chinese population; more than 10% of the inhabitants (mostly ethnic Chinese) are Christians, including around 540,000 Catholics, of whom 360,000 are Catholic Chinese. Accordingly, there are also a large number of religious sites of different beliefs.

The most important Buddhist temple in Hong Kong is the Temple of Ten Thousand Buddhas (萬佛寺, Wànfó Sì, Jyutping Maan fat Zi) in Sha Tin, which is located on a hill. The walls of this temple are decorated with around 12,800 Buddhas donated by believers from the city and abroad, and on which twelve craftsmen worked for ten years. On Lantau Island is the Buddhist Po Lin Monastery with the Tian Tan Buddha, one of the largest seated Buddha statues in the world. The Ling To Monastery is one of the three most important Buddhist monasteries in Hong Kong.

Also interesting are the numerous small temples squeezed between the skyscrapers in Central and Kowloon, such as the largest Man Mo Temple - in High Chinese Wenwu Temple - (文武廟, Wén Wǔ Miào, Jyutping Man Mou Miu) in Hong Kong, which is dedicated to the Taoist gods of literature and martial arts and is located in one of the most traditional districts of Sheung Wan, on Hollywood Road 124-126. This temple is also known among the local population of Hong Kong as the "Man Mo Temple of the Tung Wah Hospital Groups" - 東華三院文武廟 - because the temple administration is run by this charitable organization. Usually, most of the temple complexes in Hong Kong are organized in the umbrella organization of the "Chinese Temple Committee" (華人廟宇委員會, English Chinese Temples Committee).

One of the more than 102, mostly small Tin Hau Temples (天后廟, Tiānhòu Miào, Jyutping Tin hau Miu), which can be found in various parts of Hong Kong, is located near Market Street in the Yaumatei district in the northwest of Kowloon and is dedicated to the Taoist protective goddess Tinhau, pronounced Tianhou in High Chinese, who is particularly popular as a patron saint among sailors and fishermen, whereas the huge Wong Tai Sin Temple, located just north of Mongkok, is the most visited temple in Hong Kong because of its miraculous healing powers and divination. The four most famous Taoist temples in Hong Kong include the Man Mo Temple in Sheung Wan (Hollywood Road, Central, Hong Kong Island), the Wong Tai Sin Temple in Kowloon, the oldest Tin Tau Temple in Hong Kong in Sai Kung (佛堂門天后古廟, English Joss House Bay Tin Hau Temple) and the Che Kung Temple in Sha Tin (車公廟, Chēgōng Miào, Jyutping Ce gung Miu, English Che Kung Temple).

The most important mosque in Hong Kong, the Kowloon Mosque and Islamic Centre, is located on Nathan Road in Kowloon, right at the southern end of Kowloon Park, while St John's Cathedral, the largest Anglican church in Hong Kong, is located in the Central District; it was built in 1849 and is now surrounded by trees in the shade of the Bank of China Tower. Unlike on the mainland, Christian religious communities are not organized in a Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association.

 

Education

There is compulsory schooling for children aged 6 to 15. Most children are sent to preschools from the age of 3. Hong Kong's school system and its structure is modeled on the British system. Primary school education begins at age 5 to 6 and lasts 6 years. Secondary education is divided into junior form (3 years) and senior form (2 years). Around 90% of children complete school until they have completed their entire secondary education in order to take a state examination (HKCEE). After passing this examination, they are given a Certificate of Education. To gain a university education, they then have to complete two years of secondary school and take a numerus clausus examination for admission to university.

Compulsory schooling in Hong Kong has been free since the 1970s. Fees are charged for further education. Many private institutions also promise higher quality education for compulsory schooling at higher prices. The language of instruction is Chinese (Cantonese), and English is usually chosen as an optional second language.

In addition to public schools, there are private and international schools in Hong Kong. The better known ones include:
German-Swiss International School
Diocesan Boys’ School
King’s College
Li Po Chun College
Maryknoll Convent School
Queen’s College
St. Mary’s Canossian College

Hong Kong has eleven universities and two academy institutes that also offer bachelor’s degree courses. Due to the high demand for higher education, there are a large number of other institutions that offer higher education courses. The oldest university is the University of Hong Kong, founded in 1910. Other universities include the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, City University in Hong Kong and Lingnan University.

Furthermore, there are over 67 public libraries in Hong Kong, of which the Hong Kong Central Library, opened in 2001, is the largest with its 12 floors and 33,800 square meters of space. Its construction cost HK$690 million.

 

Housing situation

According to the international consulting firm Mercer, Hong Kong is one of the cities with the highest cost of living in the world. Nowhere in the world are the average costs of housing as high as in Hong Kong. The buildable area is limited, but there are enough buyers for expensive luxury apartments, which is where real estate companies make the most money. Even for the middle class, condominiums are often unaffordable.

In Mercer's ranking of cities according to their quality of life, Hong Kong ranked 71st out of 231 cities worldwide in 2019. Hong Kong was behind comparable Asian cities such as Singapore (25th place) or Tokyo (49th place), but ahead of all the cities examined on the Chinese mainland.

 

Public Housing

When the Chinese Civil War ended in 1949 with the proclamation of the People's Republic of China, a large wave of migration from China to the then British crown colony of Hong Kong began. The mostly destitute migrants settled in large areas with huts made of wood and sheet metal, which were scattered throughout the territory. The safety and hygiene conditions were catastrophic, and fires occurred repeatedly. After a fire that broke out in Kowloon North in the Shek Kip Mei (石硤尾) district at Christmas 1953 raged for several days and left more than 50,000 people homeless, the colonial administration decided to temporarily relocate the hut dwellers to multi-storey concrete houses in order to improve both fire safety and hygiene conditions. This was practically the start of the public housing program in Hong Kong. The first eight Mark I houses were completed in Shek Kip Mei at the end of 1954 to provide a home for those made homeless by the fire.

The living space per family was 20 square metres, sanitary facilities had to be shared with other families and cooking facilities were located outside the apartments. Numerous such houses were built by the end of the 1960s, although the improved versions Mark II and Mark III offered little more comfort. Practically all life took place on the streets, which were used for the numerous stalls. In 1965, residential high-rises were built, starting with the Mark IV series (e.g. Lower Ngau Tau Kok (II) Estate). These offered each apartment its own sanitary facilities and a balcony. At this time, one million people lived in the apartments of the public housing programme.

In 1971, the Wah Fu Estate, the first public housing block designed as a self-contained community, was completed. This offered residents shopping centers, a bus station and other community facilities. In 1972, the colonial administration launched a program that was to create housing for around 1.8 million people over the next ten years. This program was later extended until 1987.

Initially, many of the Mark I–II houses were renovated. However, these measures proved insufficient, so large high-rise buildings were built that provided space for shops and shopping centers on the ground floor. Here, each apartment had sanitary facilities and a kitchen. Apartment blocks are still being built according to this scheme today, with standards in terms of living space, infrastructure and equipment of the apartments constantly increasing. In 1981, the number of people living in apartments in the public housing program reached two million. In 1985, it was decided to demolish the apartment blocks built in the 1960s, which no longer met the standard. The renovation work on the old Mark I–II buildings was completed in 1991. A year later, the first Harmony Blocks, the new generation of public housing, were completed.

Despite the high level of construction activity to create housing, it was not until the early 1980s that the last shantytowns were cleared. In 2001, the last concrete houses in Shek Kip Mei, which had provided temporary housing for the victims of the 1953 fire, were demolished. The Mark I-III houses have now been almost completely demolished and replaced by high-rise buildings; the few remaining examples are in turn inhabited by almost destitute immigrants from the People's Republic.

The public housing program is still the most important generator of housing today; in some areas of Hong Kong, the proportion of apartments created by the Public Housing Authority is well over 70%. According to government figures, there were more than 220,000 people on the public housing program's waiting list in 2014, with an average wait time of up to three years.

After the income levels of large parts of the population have risen sharply in recent decades, the Public Housing Authority is increasingly turning to apartment tenants as owners. It is hoped that by allowing Hong Kong's ageing population to own their homes, they will be able to provide greater security.

 

Cage People

In the metropolis of Hong Kong, over 1.3 million people are economically and socially marginalized. According to the aid organization Misereor, hundreds of thousands of these people lived as so-called cage people in 2017. This is the name given to residents of Hong Kong who live with several people in a room divided by lockable cages or wooden boxes. The cages serve as individual living units, are about two cubic meters in size and are sometimes stacked two or three stories high. Whole families live in the cages, share a toilet with six other families, wash their laundry by hand and sleep on top of each other. There is no privacy or retreat. Extreme conditions prevail in summer, when temperatures in Hong Kong are around 40 degrees.

The history of caged homes began with rapid population growth in the 1950s and 1960s. Many apartments were divided by the owners into mini-dwellings, also known as shoe boxes. In 2013, the Hong Kong government estimated that around 177,000 people were living in inadequate conditions. There is no sign of a turnaround in this trend, as many of the caged apartments are operated illegally.

 

New Towns

From the 1970s onwards, the Hong Kong government systematically pursued the construction of planned cities, the so-called New Towns, in the New Territories. The main aim was to relieve the extremely tense housing situation on Hong Kong Island and Kowloon. The infrastructure of the New Towns was provided by the state, and a significant proportion of the apartments there were also built under state control. In 2016, almost half of Hong Kong's population lived in the nine existing New Towns.

 

Relationship with mainland Chinese after the return

Relations with mainland Chinese are not free of tensions, but Hong Kong's cultural and national affiliation with China is beyond question for the vast majority of Hong Kong residents. According to a representative survey conducted by the Pew Research Center in 2023, the majority of the population (53%) identify as "both Hong Konger and Chinese", around a third "primarily as Hong Konger" and 10% "primarily as Chinese". In the same survey, 48% of respondents said they saw China's influence as a major threat to Hong Kong. Hong Kong has been described as the most liberal market economy in the world. The proportion of millionaires and billionaires is higher in Hong Kong than anywhere else, but incomes are blatantly unequally distributed. Nowhere in China is the poverty rate as high as in Hong Kong. Around 20 percent of Hong Kong's population live below the poverty line. In China as a whole, the poverty rate was only 3.14 percent in 2016. However, the legal definition of poverty in Hong Kong and the rest of the People's Republic is, among other things, due to different living costs, it is difficult to compare them directly. According to official statistics, people in Hong Kong were considered poor if they earned less than half of the average income. For a single person in Hong Kong, the poverty line in 2016 was HK$4,000 (around US$512) per month. The poverty line in the People's Republic of China in 2016 was 2,300 yuan (around US$350 according to the official exchange rate) per year.

In 2016, the number of people affected by poverty in Hong Kong rose to 1.35 million.[49] Around 30 percent of Hong Kong residents lived in social or subsidized housing in 2017. 40 percent of Hong Kong residents receive social assistance. This has only been available since the early 2000s. The maximum rate for social assistance recipients in 2017 was the equivalent of around 500 euros. Almost half of social assistance benefits go towards a bed in a cage. These people live in great poverty.

Hong Kong has the longest working hours in the world, with an average of 51.5 hours per week. Nowhere in China are there more strikes than in Hong Kong. According to official statistics, the median monthly income in May/June 2017 was HK$16,800 (≈ 1920 euros). However, income is extremely unequally distributed. The labor market is heavily geared towards work in the service sector and office jobs, with a wide range in requirements and pay. In 2016, for example, the maximum salary for simple office work was the equivalent of 600 euros, which barely covered the rent. On the other hand, managers of banks and multinational corporations received health insurance, pension provision, subsidies for rent and school fees for their children, etc., as well as memberships in exclusive clubs in addition to an average monthly fixed salary of around 20,000 euros.

The majority of office workers in public administration, banks and insurance companies earn around 3,000 euros a month. Non-monetary benefits are of greater interest. International companies tend to give their employees more vacation, have a five-day week, require less overtime, often pay sick leave and also offer greater job security. In 2016, anyone leaving university at the age of 22 or 23 could expect a starting salary of around 1,500 to 1,700 euros in Hong Kong. This is lower than in mainland China, which is why young people are increasingly leaving Hong Kong, particularly for Shenzhen. The majority of managers now earn roughly the same gross as on the Chinese mainland.

With financial support from the national government in Beijing for social benefits, the Hong Kong local government is trying to reduce the great inequality. In particular, parties close to the Communist Party of China (CCP) were able to push through the introduction of a minimum wage in the Hong Kong Legislative Council in 2011, which has been set at an hourly wage of HK$37.5 (equivalent to 4.26 euros) since 2019. Long after the British colonial government, workers in Hong Kong had no rights whatsoever. The Hong Kong Employment Ordinance has only regulated minimum labor law provisions since 2014, but does not yet correspond to the employment contract and occupational safety laws applicable on the mainland.

Unlike in the rest of China, there is still no statutory health insurance requirement in Hong Kong. However, most employers in Hong Kong now pay additional premiums for private health insurance. (As of 2017) Statutory pension provision was only introduced in Hong Kong in 2000. Since then, companies in Hong Kong, like everywhere else in the People's Republic of China, have been obliged to pay contributions to a state pension fund.

The CCP itself is banned in Hong Kong on the basis of the Sino-British Joint Declaration on Hong Kong, which is valid until 2047.

At the beginning of 2019, the government introduced a law that would have allowed suspects to be extradited from Hong Kong to mainland China. Protests against this have been taking place in Hong Kong since June 2019. On June 16, two million people demonstrated against the planned extradition law.

 

Politics

Autonomy status

According to the Sino-British Joint Declaration on Hong Kong and within the framework of the principle of one country, two systems developed by Deng Xiaoping, Hong Kong's democratic market economy system should exist alongside the authoritarian socialist system of the People's Republic of China for at least 50 years, so that Hong Kong's role as one of the financial centers of Asia would be secured. This autonomy allows Hong Kong to have its own laws, tariffs and its own currency. The special administrative region continues to be an independent member of GATT, WTO, APEC, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the Financial Stability Board (FSB) as well as ESCAP.

Traditionally, some judges in Hong Kong's highest courts were sent from Great Britain, Canada or Australia. This was intended to guarantee the quality of jurisprudence according to the Anglo-Saxon model. Since the National Security Law came into force, several judges have resigned, most without comment. In June 2024, Lord Sumption resigned from the highest court, citing "the city is slowly becoming a totalitarian state and judges are being compromised by an impossible political environment created by China." The Hong Kong government stated that it strongly disapproved of Lord Sumption's opinions and called them a betrayal of Hong Kong's judges. These special judicial offices in Hong Kong are extremely profitable for the judges: they receive around £40,000 per case.

 

Parliament and electoral law

Until the return to China in 1997, the Governor of Hong Kong was appointed as head of government by the British monarch on the advice of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Efforts to introduce free elections in the late 1950s/early 1960s were not pursued. The first elections took place in 1997. Since then, legislation has been made by the Hong Kong Legislative Council (LegCo) on the basis of the Hong Kong Basic Law. However, not every citizen has the same right to vote. Only half of the 70 representatives are elected in constituencies. The remaining members of the legislative power are elected by 28 professional groups. The votes can be cast by individuals, for example all teachers in Hong Kong, but above all by large companies.

The electoral system is criticized by the national government in Beijing and by the majority of Hong Kong citizens alike. It dates back to the British occupying power, which used it to secure a certain amount of political influence in Hong Kong. Not only do corporations have a direct influence on the MPs, their voice is also more important, as there are fewer voters registered in the professional groups than in the electoral districts. For example, the financial sector has 130 votes, which are controlled by 125 voters from Hong Kong branches of the Paris-based Axa and Prudential and HSBC in London. The same applies to other sectors with voting rights, such as the catering industry, airlines, airport operators, etc. A change to the electoral law was planned for 2017, but was prevented - not by Beijing, but by the Hong Kong parliament: On June 18, 2015, the voting members of the Legislative Council rejected the electoral reform proposal by 28 votes to 8.

At the end of August 2014, plans by the National People's Congress in Beijing were announced, according to which a 1,200-member committee formed by the Chinese state would determine the candidates for the election of the Hong Kong Legislative Council. In contrast, protests in Hong Kong were formed in September 2014, sparked by students and joined by the Occupy Central with Love and Peace movement. The demonstrations were directed against both Beijing's plans and the existing electoral system. The demonstrations lasted until mid-December 2014. In the election for the Legislative Council on September 4, 2016, several representatives of the recently founded Demosistō party, whose leader Nathan Law was one of the main exponents of the protests, entered parliament.

In total, there are currently (2016-2020) 18 parties and nine independents in the Legislative Council of Hong Kong. The parties are divided into two camps, "pan-democratic" and "pro-Beijing". However, this does not mean that there is unity within the camps. With currently 13 seats, the DAB (Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong), founded in 1992, is the strongest force. It advocates close economic cooperation with the mainland, with none of the parties represented in the Legislative Council in Hong Kong calling into question their cultural and national affiliation with the People's Republic of China.

In the 2020 Democracy Index of the British magazine The Economist, Hong Kong ranks 87th out of 167 countries and is considered a "hybrid regime". On October 14, 2020, the US State Department published a report on 10 people who it believes are making a significant contribution to China's failure to meet its obligations under the Sino-British Joint Declaration on Hong Kong and the Hong Kong Basic Law. Xia Baolong, Zhang Xiaoming, Luo Huining, Carrie Lam, Teresa Cheng, Erick Tsang, Zheng Yanxiong, Eric Chan, John Lee, Chris Tang were on the list of Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons.

In March 2021, the deputies of the Chinese People's Congress (at their annual meeting in Beijing) voted for the controversial electoral reform in Hong Kong (2895 votes in favor, no votes against and one abstention). After that, only 20 deputies were directly elected by the people in the parliamentary election on December 19, 2021; in order to be admitted, they had to swear their loyalty to mainland China before the electoral commission. 40 more were selected by an electoral committee loyal to Beijing, and another 30 were appointed by professional groups that mostly voted "pro-establishment," i.e. pro-CCP. "In the controversial vote, voter turnout fell to just 30.2 percent (including invalid votes) - after 58.3 percent had voted five years ago."

In December 2023, the first district council elections in Hong Kong were held since a change in electoral law enforced by Beijing. Only 27.5% of eligible voters took part, while in 2019 the turnout was over 70%. All candidates were checked in advance by election committees for their "patriotic sentiments". All candidates from pro-democratic parties were excluded from the election. Forces loyal to Beijing have won the overwhelming majority of seats.

 

Heads of government

The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region has a so-called Chief Executive as head of government. The formal head of state of Hong Kong is the President of the People's Republic of China; currently Xi Jinping. In 1997, at the first election, the powers of those elected were unknown and were only determined retrospectively. The first acting head of government after Hong Kong was returned to China was Tung Chee-hwa. This election was carried out by a committee whose 400 members were appointed by the National People's Congress in Beijing. Tung was re-elected for a second term in July 2002 by a representative election committee. On March 12, 2005, Tung resigned, according to his own statements, for health reasons.

His successor was initially Donald Tsang, until he resigned on May 25, 2005, to prepare for the elections on July 10, 2005. He was eventually re-elected by 80 members of the election committee, but his term of office was initially limited to the two remaining years of Tung's term. In the election on March 25, 2007, Donald Tsang won again, his opponent was the lawyer Alan Leong. The election was criticized in the media as a farce, since the undemocratic composition of the 800-member electoral body made it almost impossible for Tsang to lose. Leong's candidacy was a surprise, however, since he received the required 100 votes from the body to be allowed to run straight away. After Tsang was legally unable to stand for re-election in 2012, Leung Chun-ying was elected as the new Chief Executive on March 25, 2012 with 689 votes.

Carrie Lam has been the Chief Executive of Hong Kong since July 1, 2017. She was elected on March 26, 2017 with 777 votes and is the first woman to hold this office. The President of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong - legislative assembly - has been Andrew Leung since 2016.

In July 2020, the Committee for Safeguarding National Security of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region was officially established with Carrie Lam as Chair and Eric Chan as Secretary-General of the Committee. The other members are Matthew Cheung Kin-chung (Administrative Secretary), Paul Chan Mo-po (Financial Secretary), Teresa Cheng (Minister for Justice), John Lee Ka-chiu (Secretary for Security), Chris Tang (Commissioner of Hong Kong Police Force), Edwina Lau Chi Wai (Deputy Commissioner of Hong Kong Police Force and Head of the Department for Safeguarding National Security of Hong Kong Police Force), Au Ka-wang (Immigration Director), Hermes Tang Yi-hoi (Commissioner of Customs and Excise of Hong Kong).

On July 1, 2022, John Lee Ka-chiu succeeded Carrie Lam as Chief Executive of Hong Kong to the post of head of government of the Special Administrative Region.

 

Administration

The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region has a unitary administration based on the model of a unitary or central state and is divided into the three regions of Hong Kong Island, Kowloon and New Territories.

The regions are divided into 18 districts (十八區, English 18 Districts), each with its own local "District Council" (區議會, English District Council).

The "District Council" has both administrative and advisory functions for the population and the Hong Kong government. It serves as an intermediary between citizens and politicians or government representatives in the Hong Kong Parliament. 4 of the 18 districts are in the area of ​​Hong Kong Island, 5 in Kowloon and the remaining 9 in the New Territories.

Cities (towns) and communities (communities) within Hong Kong are not intended as separate legal entities. The boundaries of Victoria City and Kowloon were established by law, but these two areas also have no legal status. The division of the districts follows mountain ranges, the coast or roads and does not take into account the boundaries of the cities and towns. The Hong Kong Home Affairs Department is the highest government authority of the district administration and is responsible for the administration and coordination of the districts.

 

Postal code

The postal system of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (香港郵政, English Hong Kong Post) is independent and independent of the Chinese postal system in mainland China. The Hong Kong Post does not actually use a postal code system for mail delivery. A Hong Kong postal address does not usually contain a postal code. However, regardless of this, the Chinese authorities or China Post (中國郵政) in mainland China officially have the postal code 999077 for Hong Kong for administrative use by the domestic Chinese administration. This postal code can be used for mail within China, but it has no meaning in Hong Kong or internationally.

 

Transport

Hong Kong is a transport hub for southern China and is one of the most important international transport hubs in Asia for freight and passengers by sea and especially by air, due to its many flight connections worldwide.

 

Road traffic

Hong Kong is also served by a dense network of ten motorways. As a historical relic from the British colonial era, traffic drives on the left, unlike in mainland China. For pedestrians, there is a network of over 800 pedestrian bridges that were built to spatially separate car traffic and pedestrians and improve traffic flow. Between 2009 and 2018, a 55-kilometer-long road connection to Macau and Zhuhai was built for the equivalent of 15 billion euros (120 billion yuan) - the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge (HZMB). The HZMB, which opened on October 23, 2018, is the world's longest overwater bridge, which is an important transport element and link in the Pearl River Delta ring road system as part of the development of the future metropolitan region on the Pearl River Delta (PRD). (As of 2019)

 

Shipping

Hong Kong is connected by ferry to a large number of coastal cities in southern China and to cities on the Pearl River. This metropolitan region on the Pearl River Delta is officially known as the "Greater Bay Area" (GBA, 大灣區). A frequently used connection is the one to Macau, which is offered by several companies. The crossing to Macau takes between 35 and 70 minutes, depending on the type of ferry connection (boat type) or the starting and destination points.

Many ferries from the numerous ferry piers serve the offshore islands, and there are also the old ships of the traditional Star Ferry company, which maintain passenger transport between Kowloon and Hong Kong Island. Since the 1 to 1½ kilometer wide body of water that lies between Kowloon and Hong Kong is now crossed by three road and subway tunnels, such as the Cross-Harbour Tunnel (CHT), the ferries have lost their former unique position. Depending on the fare, a single ferry trip costs around HK$3 on weekdays (around HK$4 on holidays and weekends, as of 2019) and is popular with locals as well as tourists who appreciate the driving experience or want to take photos of Hong Kong's skyline.

 

Rail transport

Hong Kong's rail network is connected to the People's Republic of China's railway network; there are trains to Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Dongguan, Wuhan, Handan and Zhengzhou, among others. Large train stations are Hung Hom Station and West Kowloon Station. West Kowloon Station, completed in September 2018, is the largest underground station in the world and the hub of the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong high-speed railway line and the end point of the last section of the Beijing-Hong Kong high-speed railway line, which opened on September 23, 2018. (As of 2019)

 

Public transport

Public transport is well developed in Hong Kong. The subway and buses are two of the most important means of transport. Thousands of double-decker buses travel on numerous routes that connect almost all of the territory's towns. The connections are usually efficient and inexpensive, although confusing for visitors due to the large number of lines operated by different operators. In addition to the double-deckers, there are 19-seat liquid or LPG-powered public light buses, locally mostly called "minibuses" (Cantonese 小巴, German "shared taxis"), with lines on parallel routes and short routes to complement the various bus operators in the city. A distinction must be made between those with a green and red roof. The ones with the red roof have no fixed intermediate stops apart from their fixed end stations, but travel dynamic routes depending on the passengers' destinations. The ones with the green roof have fixed stops, but you can get on and off both anywhere on hand signals or at the request of the passengers.

There are also a large number of five-seater taxis (Cantonese 的士). They are color-coded according to the region they serve due to different licenses. The red city taxis serve the city or inner city region, i.e. Hong Kong Island and Kowloon, and comprise the largest group with around 15,000 vehicles. This is followed by around 2,800 green taxis for the New Territories and 75 blue taxis for the Outlying Islands, which actually only operate on Lantau Island.

The Hong Kong subway, which opened on October 1, 1979, is called the Mass Transit Railway (MTR). It runs on a network of eleven lines over 200 kilometers long and connects the densely populated areas. Of all the means of transport, the subway carries by far the most passengers. It is very popular because of its good air conditioning, cleanliness, relatively low fares (in Hong Kong, the income gap between the population is very large) and, above all, its high speed; Depending on the time of day, trains run every 2 to 4 minutes. The Island Line crosses Hong Kong Island from west to east, the Tsuen Wan Line runs from Hong Kong Island to the residential areas in the hinterland of Kowloon, and the Kwun Tong Line connects the southernmost part of Kowloon Yau Ma Tei with the east of Kowloon and ends at the Tseung Kwan O Line. The Airport Express runs parallel to the Tung Chung Line and connects Hong Kong and Kowloon with Hong Kong International Airport. These two lines can be used to change to the Disneyland Resort Line, which goes to Hong Kong Disneyland. Another line is the East Rail Line, which runs north from the Hung Hom district in Kowloon and whose last station is the border with Shenzhen. The West Rail Line has connected Hung Hom in Kowloon, via Yuen Long with the western district of Tuen Mun in the New Territories since 2003. A branch line has connected Ma On Shan and other areas of Sha Tin since the end of December 2004. Since the end of 2016, the South Island Line has connected Admiralty in the busy north of Hong Kong Island with South Horizons, a private high-rise residential development in the Southern District on the south coast on the offshore island of Ap Lei Chau. With the opening of the South Island Line connection on December 28, 2016, all 18 districts of Hong Kong were connected to the MTR network for the first time.

The Hong Kong Tramways (HKT), affectionately known as Ding Ding (叮叮) by the local population, is a tram that has been running on the tracks in the northern part of Hong Kong Island since July 30, 1904. The two-story, old-fashioned trams, which run relatively slowly on a 13-kilometer-long network, are popular not only with tourists, as the fares are very low. After years of planning and test operations, the introduction of modern, air-conditioned articulated trams was initially abandoned for a variety of reasons, such as originality, nostalgia, higher ticket prices for passengers and high investments by the operating company to modernize the fleet and the overhead line network (network load), etc. The Peak Tram, a funicular railway that has been running between Central and Victoria Peak since 1888, serves primarily tourist purposes. A modern, air-conditioned light rail system has been running between the cities of Tuen Mun and Yuen Long in the west of the New Territories since September 17, 1988. The railway, known as Light Rail Transit (LRT), runs on a 31.7-kilometer-long network, but is relatively slow on some sections. Since the merger of the subway company MTR Corporation (MTRC) with the Hong Kong railway company Kowloon Canton Railway Corporation (KCRC) in December 2007, the line networks of the subway system (MTR), the light rail system (LTR) and the railway system (KCR) have been managed by the parent company MTRC.

The Central Mid-Levels Escalator connects the Central and Mid-Levels districts on Hong Kong Island and is the longest covered and outdoor escalator system in the world. The method of payment for most means of transport (except taxis) is the contactless Octopus card.

 

Air traffic

Hong Kong International Airport is one of the most important airports in Asia. It has direct flights from many European airports. It is the home airport of several airlines, including Cathay Pacific, Cathay Dragon and the low-cost airlines Hong Kong Airlines and HK Express. The airport was opened in 1998 to replace the previous Kai Tak airport on Kowloon Bay in the city center, which was very difficult to reach and had limited space. The construction cost around 15 billion euros, which also covered the costs of connecting the airport to the city center via the Airport Express and the Route 8 motorway. This means that the travel time is not much longer than to Kai Tak, even though Kai Tak was in Kowloon, in the middle of Victoria Harbour, while the new airport is more than 30 km away, far outside the city. The new location is the originally 100 m high island of Chek Lap Kok north of Lantau Island, which was removed to a height of 7 m above sea level, with the removed material being used to create the now 13.8 km² land area.

 

Economy

Overview

Hong Kong's characterization of the economy is only at first glance a free market economy: both during British rule and after the handover, the government influenced the economy, for example through the allocation of land or through its commitment to the fixed exchange rate regime with a currency board between the Hong Kong dollar and the US dollar. In addition, a tax reform with a Goods and Services Tax (GST), comparable to the German sales tax, is intended to increase Hong Kong's tax revenue. However, there are many fears that this tax will hit shopping tourism, on which many businesses live, and local consumption hard.

The gross national income per capita was 43,528 US dollars in 2016, which is comparable to Western European economies. Despite its small population, Hong Kong was the world's eighth largest exporter of goods and services in 2016. Economic development is heavily dependent on exports and thus on the global economy. Until 2002, the territory's economy was in a recession lasting several years, partly due to the aftermath of the Asian crisis and partly due to the SARS pandemic in 2002/2003. During this recession, both residents' incomes and consumer prices fell.

In order to achieve stronger economic growth, the Hong Kong government is relying on strong economic cooperation with mainland China. In mid-2003, the Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement was signed, which gives Hong Kong entrepreneurs preferential access to the Chinese markets.

After the recession that hit all of Southeast and East Asia after the Asian financial crisis, Hong Kong's economy grew again until the start of the SARS pandemic in 2002/2003, which plunged the economy into crisis again, from which the city has since recovered. In the years that followed, Hong Kong's economy grew very strongly again, mainly due to the rapidly expanding Chinese economy and simultaneous capital flight to Hong Kong. In 2017, economic growth was around 3.8%. The unemployment rate was reported at 3.1% in the same year.

Hong Kong is one of the most important financial centers in Asia, the Hong Kong Stock Exchange index is the Hang Seng Index. According to Forbes, there were 67 billionaires in Hong Kong in 2017. On January 28, 2016, the EU Commission presented a package of measures to combat tax evasion, which included Hong Kong being placed on the blacklist of tax havens.

In the Global Competitiveness Index, which measures a country's competitiveness, Hong Kong ranked 6th out of 137 countries (as of 2017-18). In the Index for Economic Freedom, Hong Kong ranked 1st out of 180 countries in 2017.

 

Trade and industry

Until the 1980s, industrial production played a significant role in the economic growth of the then crown colony. The dominant sector was light industry, with household appliances, toys, electronics and textiles being exported. In recent years, however, the majority of industrial companies have migrated to the mainland and Hong Kong's economy has switched to a service economy.

Today, industry accounts for just under 15% of GDP, with high-tech companies making up the largest share. Industrial production is falling by around 9% annually. Motorways, large, navigable rivers and five major airports are allowing the cities in the delta to grow together into a mega-city with more than 40 million people.

Hong Kong has few natural resources and is heavily dependent on international trade. The port of Hong Kong, which originally aroused great interest from the British, was for a long time the most important transshipment point for industrial products from all over China. In recent years, the port of Hong Kong has been facing increasing competition from surrounding ports. While the volume of goods handled in the port of Hong Kong has stagnated, it has increased significantly in Shenzhen, Guangzhou and Xiamen. In 2013, for the first time, more containers were handled at the container terminals in neighboring Shenzhen than in the port of Hong Kong, which ranks fourth in the world with 22.35 million TEU (standard containers) in 2013.

Hong Kong is one of the most important financial centers in Asia, it has one of the most advanced information and telecommunications infrastructures in the world and has also earned a reputation for having a solid, well-monitored banking system. This was mainly due to the Asian crisis in 1997, during which the currencies of neighboring countries had to be heavily devalued, while Hong Kong's remained relatively unscathed, which is mainly attributed to the quality of the banking system. The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC), one of the largest banks in the world, was founded in Hong Kong in 1865.

Tourism is an important source of income and its importance is growing. Many tourists, especially from mainland China, come to Hong Kong to shop, so the retail sector benefits from this. Hong Kong International Airport is an important economic factor as an air traffic hub.

 

Hong Kong Financial Centre

Since the Second World War, Hong Kong has developed into an important financial centre for China and parts of Southeast Asia. The colonial government promoted this through liberal economic policies, low capital controls and freedom of establishment for foreign banks. The legal system in the Anglo-Saxon tradition was also crucial. Hong Kong's courts, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority and the Securities and Futures Commission are internationally recognised for securing the legal framework. With China's economic upswing in the 1980s, the financial sector also grew, and Hong Kong became a hub between the People's Republic and foreign countries. With the end of colonial rule in 1997, special laws (Basic Law) came into force which granted relative autonomy. Over time, the central government and the Chinese Communist Party exerted pressure to bring Hong Kong's status into line with that of China, for example in the area of ​​legislation to safeguard China's national security, which is anchored in Hong Kong's Basic Law and has not yet been implemented. This caused problems for the financial market. For example, in 2011 the government protested against a critical report by Moody's, and the auditing firms KPMG, Ernst & Young, Deloitte and PricewaterhouseCoopers were forced to lay off employees who took part in anti-government protests. This has had an impact, with asset management firms moving their business to Singapore. The stock exchange has not yet been affected, and there has not been a major outflow of capital. The Chinese government is trying to promote Shanghai and Shenzhen as financial centers.

Note: This section is based on a study from 2020. Since then, the Chinese government has further increased pressure to integrate Hong Kong, making the pessimistic forecasts more likely. At the end of 2023, the Chinese government denied that the decline in financial transactions in Hong Kong was due to government pressure, but cited other reasons for it, in particular the Covid pandemic and the general problems of the Chinese economy over the past year.

 

Agriculture

Hong Kong has almost no agricultural land and there is also a lack of fresh water. Only in the New Territories is agriculture carried out on a limited scale; however, its share of GDP is not even 0.1%. The manufacturer Kowloon Dairy is one of the few dairy farms in Hong Kong, along with its competitors Tappist Dairy and Nestlé Dairy Farm. Hong Kong's agriculture also suffered a severe blow from the outbreak of the H5N1 bird flu in the 1990s. The majority of food is imported from the People's Republic of China; Hong Kong only produces some vegetables, poultry and pork itself. Fishing is somewhat more important, but its share of GDP is also negligible.

 

State budget

Although Hong Kong is not an independent state, it runs its own budget. The state budget in 2016 included expenditures of the equivalent of 59.07 billion US dollars, compared to revenues of the equivalent of 59.09 billion US dollars. This results in a budget surplus of approximately 0.1% of GDP.

Hong Kong's public debt amounted to 38.4% of GDP in 2016. According to official figures from the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA), Hong Kong held foreign exchange reserves of over 400 billion US dollars.

In 2015, the share of government expenditure (in % of GDP) was as follows:
Health: 5.8%
Education: 3.3%
Military: 0.0% (No military spending)

 

Shopping

Hong Kong is a shopping paradise, especially for tourists from Japan, due to its low taxes and numerous glittering shopping centers. For a long time, the city was also considered an ideal place to buy electronic goods cheaply, but this has long since been put into perspective.

The numerous traditional markets where fresh food is traded and bought are interesting (e.g. during the day in Wan Chai, at night at the Yau Ma Tei Fruit Market in Kowloon) or cheap clothing is brought to customers. Examples of night markets are the Ladies' Market in Mongkok or the Temple Street Night Market in Kowloon, which originated on Market Street. The Jade Market is interesting for visitors. Haggling is always advisable; counterfeit or pirated products are still common.

 

Personalities

Sons and daughters of Hong Kong

Until 1950

Clara Blandick (1876–1962), American stage and film actress
Wilhelm Ehmer (1896–1976), German writer, journalist and newspaper publisher
Harald Fuchs (1900–1985), German classical philologist and university professor
Erich von der Heyde (1900–1984), German agricultural scientist, SS-Hauptscharführer
Freddie Wolff (1910–1988), British sprinter and Olympic champion, entrepreneur
René de Obaldia (1918–2022), French writer and playwright
Stanley Ho (1921–2020), entrepreneur and billionaire
Kōji Nakanishi (1925–2019), Japanese chemist and professor at Columbia University in New York
William Anders (1933–2024), US Air Force officer and astronaut
Tung Chee-hwa (* 1937), first head of administration of the Chinese Special Administrative Region of Hong Kong
J. Fenwick Lansdowne (1937–2008), bird painter
David Prophet (1937–1981), British racing driver
Martin Lee (* 1938), democratic politician, lawyer and former opposition leader
Jürgen Körner (1939–2021), German physicist and university professor
Amanda Lear (* 1939), British-Asian singer, entertainer and dancer
Luis F. Baptista (1941–2000), US ornithologist
Donald Tsang (* 1944), former head of administration of the Chinese Special Administrative Region of Hong Kong
Timothy Fok (* 1946), entrepreneur and sports official
Elaine Ling (1946–2016), Canadian doctor and photographer
James P. Tam (* 1947), chemist
Dennis Chan (* 1949), actor, screenwriter, director and film producer
Ka Nin Chan (* 1949), Canadian composer and music teacher
Wayne Wang (* 1949), American director of Chinese origin
Kurt Christian (* 1950), English actor
Henry N. C. Wong (* 1950), Chinese chemist
Ma Ying-jeou (* 1950), President of the Republic of China (Taiwan) from 2008 to 2016

 

1951 to 1970

Joseph Lau (* 1951), entrepreneur, billionaire and convicted criminal
Chung Man Yee (* 1951), Hong Kong-Chinese set and costume designer, art director and film director
Sammo Hung (* 1952), martial artist and director
Emily Lau (* 1952), journalist and politician in Hong Kong; first woman to be directly elected to the Legislative Council (1991)
Tony Liu (* 1952), actor and martial artist
Lai-Sang Young (* 1952), American mathematician of Chinese origin
Jackie Chan (* 1954), actor, martial artist, singer and producer
Chan Wing-wah (* 1954), composer and conductor
Jacky Wong (1954–2022), German-Chinese bodybuilder, actor and entrepreneur
Ringo Lam (1955–2018), film director
Chow Yun-Fat (* 1955), actor
Johnnie To (* 1955), film director
Leslie Cheung (1956–2003), actor and singer
Beate Terfloth (* 1958), German artist and professor
Stephen Chow Sau-yan (* 1959), Roman Catholic religious, Bishop of Hong Kong, Cardinal
Joseph Ha Chi-shing (* 1959), auxiliary bishop in Hong Kong
Lydia Wong (* 1960), Canadian pianist and music teacher
Benny Chan (1961–2020), screenwriter, film director and film producer
Andy Lau (* 1961), actor and singer
Stephen Chow (* 1962), director and actor
Tony Leung Chiu Wai (* 1962), actor
Samuel Wong (* 1962), Canadian conductor and physician
Raymond W. Yeung (* 1962), information theorist
Hui Cheung-wai (* 1963), composer
Philip Ma (* 1963), Hong Kong-Chinese racing driver
Anita Mui (1963–2003), musician and actress
Fiona Rae (* 1963), British painter and university lecturer
Maggie Cheung (* 1964), film actress
Anthony Mosse (* 1964), New Zealand swimmer
Mak Ka Lok (* 1965), Macau racing driver
Nicole Razavi (* 1965), German politician (CDU)
Gary Kwok (* 1966), Canadian racing driver
Byron Mann (* 1967), American actor
Delia Mayer (* 1967), Swiss actress and singer
Louis Koo (* 1970), Chinese film producer, singer and actor

 

1971 to 1990

Stephen Yip (* 1971), Chinese-American composer and organist
Kelly Chen (* 1972), singer (Cantopop) and actress
Tom Wu (* 1972), actor
Trey Lee (* 1973), Canadian cellist
Benjamin Mercer (* 1973), British-Finnish film editor
Wong Kam Po (* 1973), cyclist
Wallace Chung (* 1974), singer and actor
Joseph Merszei (* 1974), Macau racing driver
Royden Lam (* 1975), darts player
CoCo Lee (1975–2023), American pop singer
Marchy Lee (* 1976), Hong Kong-Chinese racing driver
Herman Li (* 1976), guitarist of the British power metal band DragonForce
Lo Ka Chun (* 1977), Hong Kong racing driver
Marco Fu (* 1978), snooker player
Michael Ho alias DJ Beware (* 1978), internationally successful DJ
Angel Lam (* 1978), composer
Andreas Nägelein (* 1981), Chinese-German football player
Anson Tsang (* 1982 or 1983), poker player
Katrina Kaif (* 1983), British-Indian model and actress
Chelsea Winter (* 1983), New Zealand chef and specialist author
Charles Ng (* 1984), Hong Kong-Chinese racing driver
Julia Hargreaves (* 1986), Australian show jumper
Jamie Wong (* 1986), cyclist
Lee Wai-sze (* 1987), cyclist
Lily Ho (* 1988), actress
Michael Freiberg (* 1990), Australian cyclist
Jessica Lee Hoi-yan (* 1990), track cyclist
From 1991
Fong Yee Pui (* 1991), sprinter
Grace Lau (* 1991), karateka
Ng Ka Fung (* 1992), sprinter
Lam On Ki (* 1992), sprinter
Daniel Tang (* 1992), poker player
Kenneth To (1992–2019), Chinese-Australian swimmer
Imogen Simmonds (* 1993), British-Swiss triathlete
Mark Chapman (* 1994), Hong Kong-New Zealand cricketer
Vivian Kong (* 1994), fencer
Chan Ming Tai (* 1995), long jumper
Agnes Chow (* 1996), democracy activist
Lee Cheuk Yiu (* 1996), badminton player
Tiffany Poon (* 1996), classical pianist
Joshua Wong (* 1996), student activist
Cheung Ka Long (* 1997), fencer
Ebbie Tam (* 1997), Chinese-Dutch child actress
Ng Tsz Yau (* 1998), badminton player
Man Lok Leung (* 1999), darts player
Cheng Nga-Ching (* 2000), squash player
Adithya Karunaratne (* 2001), tennis player
Lok Yin Lee (* 2001), darts player
Arabella Ng (* 2001), ski racer
Finn Elliot (* 2002), actor
Chan Sin-Yuk (* 2002), Squash player
Thomas Neill (* 2002), Australian swimmer
Fung Ching-Hei (* 2003), squash player
Veer Karan Sobti (* 2004), Singaporean-Hong Kong football player
Michael Udebuluzor (* 2004), football player
Coleman Wong (* 2004), tennis player

 

Year of birth unknown

Muna Tseng, American dancer, dance teacher and choreographer

 

Personalities who have worked in Hong Kong

Li Ka-shing (* 1928 in Chaozhou), entrepreneur and investor in Hong Kong; one of the richest people in China
Henry Steiner (* 1934 in Vienna), Austrian designer
Tao Ho (1936–2019 * in Shanghai), architect and designer; designed, for example, the flag and emblem of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region
Bruce Lee (* 1940 in San Francisco, † 1973 in Hong Kong), Sino-American martial artist, martial arts instructor and actor
Allan Zeman (* 1949 in Regensburg), entrepreneur in Hong Kong
Vivienne Tam (* 1957 in Guangzhou), fashion designer
Wong Kar-Wai (* 1958 in Shanghai), screenwriter, film producer and film director from Hong Kong