Hong Kong

Hong Kong island, which possesses the only safe deep-water anchorage between Shanghai and Haiphong, was used by the British as a staging-post for the opium trade and was taken by them as a free port during the Opium War (1839–42). Their occupancy was ratified by the treaty of Nanking. In 1860 the Kowloon peninsula was added to the port and in 1898 the New Territories were received from China on a 99-year lease. At its fullest extent, the colony reached 398 square miles. It developed as a commercial entrepôt and in 1917 was granted letters patent to be administered by a governor, and executive and legislative councils. Growth was particularly rapid during the 1930s when many Chinese fled the civil wars and Japanese invasion on the mainland and the population doubled to 1.6 million. Hong Kong itself surrendered to the Japanese on Christmas Day 1941 and was not liberated until 30 August 1945. During the 1960s, the colony became a major manufacturing centre and its population further expanded, reaching over 4 million in 1991. The lease for the New Territories ended in 1997, whereupon the whole colony reverted to the People's Republic of China.

David Anthony Washbrook