New Territories
Encyclopedia : N : NE : NEW : 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.
Districts
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
See also
- Boundary Street
- Country parks and conservation in Hong Kong
- Hong Kong
- Kowloon Peninsula
- List of buildings, sites and areas in Hong Kong
- New Kowloon
External links
- [Lease of the New Territories]
- [Lease of the New Territories]
- [Cap 1 Sched 5A - Area of the New Territories]
Further reading
- 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.
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.