Hong Kong

Introduction

With its spacious harbor offering deepwater anchorage and its prime location on the edge of the teeming continent of Asia, Hong Kong has long been a major center for trade, finance, and small manufacturing. Hong Kong's commercial importance has ensured its prominence in the global economy as well as in the economy of Asia, a position Hong Kong acquired after the establishment of British hegemony over the region in the nineteenth century, when Hong Kong was transformed from a minor coastal town into a center of British influence in East Asia. Hong Kong's prosperity has continued since the return of the territory to China by the British in 1997. Today Hong Kong stands as a bustling metropolis of almost seven million people, a city centered around an island of gleaming skyscrapers reminiscent of Manhattan and offering the world a lively and fascinating amalgam of the cultures of East and West.

Surface access for automobiles, trucks and buses is by three routes between Hong Kong and mainland China. Two bridges at Man Kam To handle traffic to and from China, and a new link was completed in 1985 at Sha Tau Kok. A third connection is at Lok Ma Chau, where a road linked to the New Territories Circular Road (NTCR) was finished in 1989.