95 Fun Facts About Hong Kong

Hong Kong's name is usually translated as what?

Fragrant harbour: the name probably renders the local phrase heung gong, perhaps for the scent of incense factories or the harbour's sweet, semi-fresh water.

Which conflict led the Qing dynasty to cede Hong Kong Island to Britain in 1842?

The First Opium War: it followed China's seizure and destruction of some 1,400 tons of opium that British merchants held at Guangzhou in 1839.

For how many years did Britain lease Hong Kong's New Territories from China?

99: the lease ran out in 1997, and because land leases couldn't extend past that date, its approach pushed Britain into talks that returned all of Hong Kong.

After the 1997 handover, Hong Kong's last colonial governor sailed away aboard which ship?

HMY Britannia: the royal yacht was retired later that year, and the government decided a replacement would cost too much.

Which British royal read the farewell speech at the handover ceremony?

Prince Charles: when a newspaper later printed his private journal of the trip, he sued it for breach of confidence and copyright.

Who was the last Governor of Hong Kong?

Chris Patten: his electoral reforms so angered Beijing that its top official on Hong Kong, Lu Ping, branded him a 'sinner'.

Who became Hong Kong's first Chief Executive in 1997?

Tung Chee-hwa: the son of a shipping magnate, he resigned in March 2005, more than two years before his second term was due to end.

What is the principle under which Hong Kong keeps a separate government and economy from the mainland?

One country, two systems: Beijing has also offered the formula to Taiwan, whose leading politicians across parties have rejected it.

Which 1984 agreement set the terms of the handover?

The Sino-British Joint Declaration: signed in December 1984, it settled that all of Hong Kong would return to China, not only the leased New Territories.

Hong Kong's mini-constitution since 1997 is known as what?

The Basic Law: it names choosing the Chief Executive by universal suffrage as the 'ultimate aim', and Beijing's refusal of open nominations for 2017 set off huge street protests.

Japan attacked Hong Kong on 8 December 1941, the same morning as which other attack?

Pearl Harbor: the Hawaii strike fell on 7 December across the date line, and Hong Kong's surrender on Christmas Day 1941 is remembered as 'Black Christmas'.

Hong Kong borders which mainland Chinese city to the north?

Shenzhen: in 1979 it was a small border city of about 30,000 people, until becoming a special economic zone set off decades of breakneck growth.

What is Hong Kong's highest point?

Tai Mo Shan: at 957 metres it is the territory's highest peak, and in cold snaps crowds head up it hoping to see frost, a rare sight in subtropical Hong Kong.

Hong Kong's July 2003 mass march opposed which proposal?

Anti-subversion law: after the march the government withdrew the bill and shelved it indefinitely.

Which star of Hong Kong martial-arts films was born in San Francisco?

Bruce Lee: he grew up in Hong Kong as a child actor, then returned to the US in 1959 and made Seattle his home.

What is the name of Hong Kong's contactless smart payment system, launched in September 1997?

Octopus: it began as a fare card for trains, buses and ferries, and it now also pays at convenience stores, supermarkets and parking meters.

Hong Kong's hillside tram line, opened in 1888, is what kind of railway?

Funicular railway: before it opened, wealthy residents up the hill were carried along the steep paths in sedan chairs, which held back building there.

In 2021, Hong Kong Tramways set a Guinness World Record for the largest fleet of what?

Double-decker trams: the first trams of 1904 were single-deckers, and double-deckers arrived in 1912 because of rising passenger demand.

The Star Ferry's main route crosses Victoria Harbour between Central and which Kowloon district?

The Central to Tsim Sha Tsui crossing has run since the company's founding as the Kowloon Ferry Company in 1888; it took the Star name in 1898 from its boats.

Which Canadian star played Kai Tak airport after it closed?

Celine Dion: she played on the empty airport's apron, and the tip of its old runway has since become the Kai Tak Cruise Terminal.

Kai Tak pilots lined up their final turn after spotting a hill painted with what pattern?

A checkerboard: the low, banking turn it cued made Kai Tak a favourite with plane spotters.

Hong Kong International Airport is built on which island?

Chek Lap Kok: engineers flattened the hilly island and neighbouring Lam Chau, then reclaimed the seabed around them to build the airport platform.

Which airline is Hong Kong's flag carrier?

Cathay Pacific: when the pandemic hit, it shut down its own regional airline, Cathay Dragon, the former Dragonair, in October 2020.

Which Hong Kong landmark gave its name to a long-running RTHK drama about ordinary families?

Lion Rock: in 2002, with the economy in a slump, the financial secretary closed his budget speech with lyrics from the drama's theme song.

As of 2025, what is Hong Kong's tallest building?

International Commerce Centre: in 2009, while it was still being built, six workers died when their platform fell down a lift shaft inside the tower.

As of 2025, Hong Kong has more of what than any other city?

Skyscrapers: counting towers over 150 metres it leads the world, because steep hills and the sea leave little flat land to build on.

Kowloon Walled City was famous for being what?

One of the most densely populated places on Earth: the government tore it down in 1993 and 1994 and built a public park in its place.

Why did Kowloon Walled City end up ungoverned for decades?

Britain and China both avoided control: the New Territories lease had excluded the enclave, so neither side ran it.

Which Hong Kong area did a 1904 law reserve for non-Chinese residents?

Victoria Peak: officials said the rule would help stop plague spreading, and Chinese residents needed special government approval to live there.

Which Martin Scorsese film remade the Hong Kong police thriller Infernal Affairs, moving its moles to Boston?

The Departed: Brad Pitt spent years developing it but decided he was too old for a lead role, so he produced it instead.

The Big Buddha at Ngong Ping is on which island?

The Tian Tan Buddha sits on Lantau, Hong Kong's largest island; the 34-metre bronze statue was completed in 1993 beside Po Lin Monastery.

Which attraction bent a walkway for feng shui?

Disneyland: its designers also left the resort's hotels without a fourth floor, because 'four' is pronounced like the word for 'death'.

Which three commercial banks issue Hong Kong's banknotes?

HSBC, Bank of China and Standard Chartered: to issue notes, each must first pay US dollars into the government's Exchange Fund at a fixed rate.

What is the predominant spoken language of Hong Kong?

Cantonese: yet English was Hong Kong's only official language until 1974, when demonstrations and petitions won Chinese equal status.

What does 'cha chaan teng' literally mean?

Tea restaurant: these diners sprang up in the 1950s and 60s as rising wages let working people afford Western-style food once kept for the elite.

Which martial-arts film was released less than a month after its star died in Hong Kong in 1973?

Enter the Dragon: its star died at 32 without seeing its global success, and the film went on to gross an estimated $400 million worldwide.

Cantopop's popularity peaked in the 1990s under which quartet of singers?

The Four Heavenly Kings, Jacky Cheung, Andy Lau, Aaron Kwok and Leon Lai, dominated Cantopop and Asian charts through the 1990s.

As of 2025, which organisation is Hong Kong's largest taxpayer?

The Jockey Club: it holds Hong Kong's only licences for betting on horse racing, football and the Mark Six lottery, and gives billions a year to charity.

Hong Kong's two horse racing tracks are at Sha Tin and where?

Happy Valley: in 1918 a temporary grandstand there collapsed on race day and set off a fire that killed at least 590 people.

What do Hong Kongers traditionally eat during Tuen Ng, the dragon boat festival?

Rice dumplings: one popular legend says villagers threw rice into the river so fish would leave the drowned poet Qu Yuan's body alone.

Hong Kong's 2019 protests were sparked by a proposed bill allowing what?

Extradition of fugitives to mainland China: the bill followed the case of a Hong Kong man accused of killing his girlfriend in Taiwan, whom the city had no way to send back.

The 2014 protests over pre-screening of Chief Executive candidates became known as what?

The Umbrella Revolution: in June 2015 lawmakers voted down the Beijing-backed election plan the protesters had opposed, 28 votes to 8.

Hong Kong was the first of which group of economies to industrialise in the 1950s?

The Four Asian Tigers (Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan) industrialised rapidly after the 1950s; Hong Kong's GDP grew 180-fold between 1961 and 1997.

By the late 2010s, Hong Kong led the world in which statistic for its people?

Highest life expectancy: among places of over 50,000 people, UN and World Bank figures rank it first, and with very few births it is ageing fast.

In the 1510s, a European explorer sailed into Chinese waters near Hong Kong; where did he come from?

Portugal: Jorge Álvares raised a stone marker on an island the Portuguese called Tamão, but after a deadly battle with China's navy in 1521 they fled.

Which material do Hong Kong's scaffolders traditionally lash together to wrap high-rise building sites?

Bamboo reached Hong Kong's building sites in the 1800s and stayed after mainland China switched to metal poles, and the same craft still raises temporary opera theatres.

Which city across the Pearl River estuary is linked to Hong Kong by a 55 km bridge-tunnel opened in 2018?

Macau lies on the far side of the estuary, and the crossing strings together three cable-stayed bridges, four artificial islands and an undersea tunnel.

Which disease spread around the world in 2003 from one guest on the ninth floor of a Hong Kong hotel?

SARS travelled from the Metropole Hotel, where a physician visiting from Guangzhou infected fellow guests, who carried the virus on to Toronto, Hanoi and Singapore.

On the Hong Kong island of Cheung Chau, festival climbers race up a 14-metre tower to grab what?

Buns bring more luck the higher they are grabbed. The race stopped after a tower collapsed in 1978 and returned in 2005 with safety gear, and the ones on the race tower are now plastic.

Which Hong Kong-born star of Police Story and Drunken Master is famous for performing his own dangerous stunts?

Jackie Chan was sent as a boy to a Peking opera school in Hong Kong, trained there in acrobatics, and broke into films as a stuntman before he became a star.

Hong Kong's Central–Mid-Levels system, which carries commuters 800 metres up a hillside, is a chain of what?

Escalators, 18 of them plus three moving walkways, run downhill for the morning rush until 10 a.m. and then switch to carry people uphill until midnight.

Which former NSA contractor flew to Hong Kong in May 2013 and handed secret surveillance files to journalists?

Edward Snowden asked The Guardian to reveal his name on 9 June 2013, then spent two weeks hidden in the flats of asylum seekers in Hong Kong.

Char siu, glazed with honey and sold by Hong Kong's roast-meat shops, is which barbecued meat?

Pork shoulder is the usual cut for char siu, 'fork roasted', and its red edge once came from fermented bean curd, though food colouring is now common.

Which five-petalled flower, discovered in Hong Kong around 1880, appears at the centre of the territory's red flag?

The Bauhinia on the flag is a sterile hybrid that a French missionary found near Pok Fu Lam, and cultivated trees are thought to descend from that single plant.

In which Christopher Nolan film does Batman fly to Hong Kong to seize a crooked accountant from a tower?

The Dark Knight spent its last nine days of filming in Hong Kong, where Batman grabs the mob's bookkeeper Lau and escapes by hooking onto a passing C-130 cargo plane.

Which body of water surrounds Hong Kong on every side except the north, where the territory meets the mainland?

The South China Sea gives Hong Kong its deepwater port, while its single land border follows a river along the northern edge.

Which Hong Kong tycoon built his first fortune in the 1950s making plastic flowers before moving into property?

Li Ka-shing left school as a teenager after his father died, opened his plastics factory in 1950 with savings and family loans, and grew into Asia's largest supplier of plastic flowers.

Which revolutionary, honoured in Taiwan as Father of the Nation, graduated from a Hong Kong medical college in 1892?

Sun Yat-sen was one of only two students in his class of twelve to graduate from the college, a forerunner of the University of Hong Kong.

Hong Kong's rainstorm warnings climb from amber through red to which top colour?

Black, amber and red warnings were all introduced after a May 1992 downpour, when children walked through the storm to schools that turned out to be closed.

Lai see, the red envelopes Hong Kong families hand out at Lunar New Year, traditionally hold what?

Money in lai see should be crisp new notes, so bank queues grow before the holiday, and amounts with a four are avoided because the word sounds like 'death'.

Which Hong Kong director, born in Shanghai, made the moody romances Chungking Express and In the Mood for Love?

Wong Kar-wai shot Chungking Express during a two-month break from another film, and in 1997 he became Hong Kong's first winner of the Best Director award at Cannes.

Which Hong Kong director of The Killer and Hard Boiled moved to Hollywood and made Face/Off with Nicolas Cage?

John Woo turned the Face/Off script down several times until it was rewritten to suit him, and the film opened in 1997 to acclaim and strong ticket sales.

Which Hong Kong comedian directed and starred in the slapstick martial-arts hits Shaolin Soccer and Kung Fu Hustle?

Stephen Chow first won attention as the host of a children's TV programme, and Shaolin Soccer became Hong Kong's highest-grossing film up to that time.

On which holiday in 1941 did Hong Kong's British governor surrender to Japan after 17 days of fighting?

Christmas Day 1941 ended with Governor Young surrendering in person at Japan's headquarters, the start of an occupation that lasted until the summer of 1945.

Which Chinese president represented Beijing at the midnight ceremony in 1997 that returned Hong Kong to China?

Jiang Zemin took the stage that night; Deng Xiaoping, who had pressed Britain for the return, died in February 1997, a few months too soon to see it.

Which British prime minister flew to Beijing in September 1982 to discuss Hong Kong's future with Deng Xiaoping?

Margaret Thatcher heard Deng insist that China's sovereignty over Hong Kong was not negotiable, though he agreed to settle the question through formal talks.

Which disease's bacterium did Alexandre Yersin identify in Hong Kong in 1894 after bribing sailors for victims' bodies?

Plague bacteria are named Yersinia pestis after him, though his Japanese rival Kitasato reached Hong Kong three days earlier and had the hospital's cadavers reserved.

Lee Lai-shan, raised on Cheung Chau, won Hong Kong's first Olympic gold medal at Atlanta 1996 in which sport?

Windsurfing ended a 44-year wait for any Olympic medal, and Lee's gold in the women's Mistral class was the only medal ever won by a British Hong Kong team.

Hong Kong, not Beijing, staged every event in which sport at the 2008 Summer Olympics?

Equestrian events moved there because Hong Kong's long-established racing industry already had strict quarantine rules for horses, lowering the risk of equine disease.

Which L-shaped street in Central gave its name to the epicentre of Hong Kong's nightlife?

Lan Kwai Fong took off after the nightclub Disco Disco opened in a basement on nearby D'Aguilar Street in December 1978 and drew celebrities and expats.

Which daily ritual, begun in the 1860s, does trading house Jardine Matheson perform at Hong Kong's Causeway Bay?

Firing a cannon at noon is said to have begun as a penalty: Jardine's militia had saluted its own boss with a gun, annoying a naval officer who held that salutes were for officials.

Which grand hotel, opened in Hong Kong in 1928, is known for its fleet of green Rolls-Royces?

The Peninsula was founded by the Kadoorie family to be the finest hotel east of Suez, and its Rolls-Royces are painted a shade known as Peninsula green.

Which Hong Kong attraction, opened in 1977, joins its two halves by cable car and has housed giant pandas since 1999?

Ocean Park opened after five years of building delayed by landslides, fire and bad weather, and its two halves sit on either side of Brick Hill.

Which local bank first published, in 1969, the stock index that tracks the largest companies on Hong Kong's exchange?

Hang Seng Bank wanted a Dow Jones of its own for Hong Kong, and the index's starting value of 100 is pegged to a trading day in July 1964.

Which 2016 Marvel film reaches its climax on a Hong Kong street, where the hero reverses time to save a friend?

Doctor Strange built its Hong Kong street on a studio lot in England, complete with more than 80 neon signs and a giant roof to keep the rain out.

Which James Clavell novel follows trader Dirk Struan as he builds a company in newly seized Hong Kong?

Tai-Pan takes its title from Struan's position as head of Asia's greatest trading company, a term Clavell translates as 'supreme leader'.

Which retired liner burned and capsized in Hong Kong's harbour in 1972 while being converted into a floating university?

Queen Elizabeth was capsized by the water used to fight the fire, and her wreck plays a secret MI6 base in the James Bond film The Man with the Golden Gun.

Soldiers from which Commonwealth country landed in Hong Kong on 16 November 1941, three weeks before Japan invaded?

Canada sent the Winnipeg Grenadiers and the Royal Rifles, who sailed from Vancouver in late October; most of their vehicles never reached them.

A 1953 fire that left 53,000 homeless in Hong Kong's Shek Kip Mei shanty town led the governor to launch what?

Public housing began with multi-storey blocks built to resist fire and flood, replacing the huts of families who had fled from the mainland.

Which 2012 video game casts players as Wei Shen, an undercover officer infiltrating a Hong Kong triad?

Sleeping Dogs was announced in 2009 as a True Crime game and cancelled by Activision in 2011, until Square Enix bought the publishing rights and gave it a new title.

Gai daan jai, a Hong Kong street snack sold from kiosks since the 1950s, is known in English by which name?

Egg waffle batter is poured into a special iron mould, thought to be a local take on the European waffle press, and the snack's original name means 'little chicken egg'.

Jumbo Kingdom, the floating seafood palace that capsized under tow in 2022, was long moored in which Hong Kong harbour?

Aberdeen fishermen were running banquet barges by the 1920s, and Jumbo, opened in 1976 at a cost of HK$30 million, capsized near the Paracel Islands days after leaving.

Since 1983, Hong Kong's currency has been pegged at about 7.8 to one unit of which foreign currency?

The US dollar peg, fixed at HK$7.80 in October 1983, was introduced during the tense talks between Britain and China over what would happen after 1997.

Which pink marine mammal of Hong Kong's waters was the official mascot of the 1997 handover ceremonies?

The Chinese white dolphin owes its pink colour not to pigment but to blood vessels near the skin that developed to help it shed heat.

Ip Man, who settled in Hong Kong in 1949, carried which southern Chinese martial art to the wider world?

Wing Chun, a close-quarters style whose name means 'singing spring', had what Ip Man called its first public demonstration at a Hong Kong exhibition fight in 1969.

Charles Kao, once head of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, won the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physics for what?

Fibre optics made Kao the 'godfather of broadband'; his wife told the press the prize would mainly go towards his medical expenses.

Who in 2017 became the first woman to lead Hong Kong, with 777 votes from a 1,194-member committee?

Carrie Lam was sworn in on 1 July 2017, the 20th anniversary of the handover, and was the first leader to have graduated from the University of Hong Kong.

Hong Kong's ICAC was founded in 1974, after a wanted police officer slipped away to London, to fight what?

Corruption charges caught up with Peter Godber, who had used his airport pass to skip passport checks and board the plane; he was later brought back, tried and convicted.

Louis Cha, co-founder of the Hong Kong newspaper Ming Pao, sold over 100 million wuxia novels under which pen name?

Jin Yong began his first serialised martial-arts novel in 1955 and, as editor-in-chief, turned out novels and editorials at some 10,000 characters a day.

Which Hong Kong governor, a keen hiker who set up the country parks, gives his name to a 100 km trail?

Murray MacLehose was the longest-serving governor, and the trail named for him and his wife joined up old village paths and grass cutters' tracks.

Yuenyeung, a Hong Kong drink named after mandarin ducks, mixes milk tea with which other beverage?

Coffee and tea make an unlikely couple, hence the name: mandarin ducks, a symbol of married love, come in pairs whose male and female look nothing alike.

The 34-metre Big Buddha near Hong Kong's Po Lin Monastery, finished in 1993, is built from 202 pieces of which metal?

Bronze makes up the 250-tonne figure, planned after the monastery's monks visited the Great Buddha of Kamakura in Japan; visitors climb 268 steps to reach it.

Which actor fell in love in Hong Kong in both Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing and The World of Suzie Wong?

William Holden played a reporter in the 1955 film and a would-be artist in the 1960 one; parts of the first were shot on location in Hong Kong, unusual for its time.

Which 1967 James Bond film opens with 007 faking his own death in Hong Kong before heading to Tokyo?

You Only Live Twice used location footage of a Kowloon street for the opening, though Bond's naval funeral was actually filmed off Gibraltar and the Bahamas.

Snow skin, a chilled variety created by a Hong Kong bakery in the 1960s, is a lighter form of which festival pastry?

Mooncake in its classic form is heavy with salted duck yolks and lotus seed paste, so the bakery cut the oil and used fruit fillings for a version served cold.