New Territories
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A major road, Kwong Fuk Road in Tai Po, a town in the New Territories. |
The
New Territories refers to a region in
Hong Kong. It comprises the area north of the
Kowloon peninsula and south of the
Shenzhen River which is the border between Hong Kong and
Mainland China, as well as most of Hong Kong's islands including
Lantau Island,
Lamma Island,
Cheung Chau, and
Peng Chau. The New Territories were leased from
Qing China to
Britain in
1898 for 99 years in the
Second Convention of Peking (The Convention for the Extension of Hong Kong Territory). Its population in 2001 was 3,343,046.
The lease comprised the territory between
Boundary Street in
Kowloon (to the south) and the
Shenzhen River (to the north), as well as many adjacent islands. By then, the part of Kowloon south of Boundary Street and
Stonecutters Island, as well as
Hong Kong Island, had already been ceded to Britain in
1860 and
1841 respectively. The lease of the New Territories was made as a result of
France's
colonisation of
Bay of Canton (
Kwang-Chou-Wan), to secure the British colony of Hong Kong. In modern usage, however, "New Territories" often exclude
New Kowloon, which was leased out as part of the New Territories but is now an integral part of the
Kowloon urban area.
Much of the New Territories were and to a limited extent still are rural areas. Attempts at modernising the area were not extensive until the late
1970s, in which many new towns were built to accommodate the overspill from the urbanized areas of
Kowloon and Hong Kong Island. Despite rapid development of the new towns which has resulted in a population of over 3 million, the
Hong Kong Government confines built-up areas to a few areas and reserves large parts of the region as parkland.
As the expiration date of the lease neared in the
1980s, talks between the
United Kingdom and the
People's Republic of China led the signing of the
Sino-British Joint Declaration (
1984), in which the whole of Hong Kong would be returned, instead of only the New Territories. This is because Hong Kong's new airport, shipping ports, reservoirs and other vital installations were (and are) all in the New Territories. Had only the New Territories been returned to China, it would also have been difficult to accommodate those New Territories residents moving to the
Kowloon Peninsula and
Hong Kong Island.
The New Territories comprise the following
districts:
*
Islands*
Kwai Tsing (
Kwai Chung and
Tsing Yi Island)
*
North*
Sai Kung*
Sha Tin*
Tai Po*
Tsuen Wan*
Tuen Mun*
Yuen Long*
Boundary Street*
Country parks and conservation in Hong Kong*
Hong Kong*
Kowloon Peninsula*
List of buildings, sites and areas in Hong Kong*
New Kowloon*
Lease of the New Territories*
Lease of the New Territories*
Cap 1 Sched 5A - Area of the New Territories*Lee Ho Yin and Lynne D. DiStefano,
A Tale of Two Villages: The Story of Changing Village Life in the New Territories (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press), 2002.
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