Hong Kong Travel Guide

General

This former British imperial enclave – situated at the mouth of the Pearl River Delta on the southwestern coast of China – has been rapidly changing since the hand-over from British colonial to Chinese sovereignty in 1997. Or rather the underlying city presents a new guise without the imperial overlay. Hong Kong’s role as gateway to China is more in question than ever, with the Bamboo Curtain a distant memory, WTO accession opening the entire mainland to foreign economic penetration and China enjoying surging growth while Hong Kong endures prolonged recession. Hong Kong has also become far more Chinese than ever before, with many ex-pats departed and an overwhelmingly Cantonese government presiding over the Filipinas, Indians, Nepalese and other minorities that comprises the city’s ethnic patchwork. Yet, on issues such as religious and press liberty, Hong Kong retains its distinct freedoms and opinions.

With the political reasons for its creation fast receding into history, Hong Kong’s geographical oddity comes into focus. The few square kilometres of territory conceded to the British now top the UN list for urban population density. Hong Kong Island itself is the core of the old imperial possession, with Kowloon just across the harbour forming the other half of the main conurbation. Further north are the New Territories, leased from China in 1898, which form a slightly more rural hinterland. And around this main focus are the large islands of Lamma and Lantau and the smaller Outlying Islands that complete the patchwork.

This assortment of pinnacles and paddies sits slap in the South China Sea’s typhoon alley. In winter and early spring, the climate can be mild and fresh but, in May, the ever-present humidity skyrockets and summer is both hot and frequently wet. Typhoons hit in summer and early autumn and, even without them, ferocious rainstorms fall intermittently. Hong Kong is not the ideal summer holiday destination.

Hong Kong’s economy has suffered since the Asian economic crisis of 1997, never regaining the same vigour (and insane property prices), although commerce is still the defining characteristic of the territory. In the proverbial scale of Cantonese values, money comes first. And Hong Kong still has plenty of that. Hong Kong has a more determined sense of its separate identity than ever before but it remains a thrustingly commercial city, whose dedication to fast money has never been greater. But the city has its unsung natural beauties in the shape of looming mountains, secluded islets, white beaches and island landscapes. The Special Administrative Region government recently branded the entire city as ‘Asia’s World City’. Visitors can judge how true that is but, unquestionably, Hong Kong remains unique.

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