New Territories

From Free net encyclopedia

Image:TaiPo.JPG The New Territories (Chinese: 新界, Pinyin: Xīnjiè) is the area of mainland in Hong Kong, north of the Kowloon peninsula, south of Shum Chun River and Hong Kong's outlying islands including Lantau Island, Lamma Island, Cheung Chau, and Peng Chau, leased from Qing China to Britain in 1898 for 99 years, by Second Convention of Peking (The Convention for the Extension of Hong Kong Territory). Population (2001): 3,343,046.

The lease comprised of all the land and adjacent islands between Boundary Street in Kowloon (to the south) and the Shum Chun River (to the north). Not included in the lease were the part of Kowloon south of Boundary Street and Stonecutters Island, and Hong Kong Island; both were ceded to Britain earlier in 1860 and 1841. The lease 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 conversations, 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 take the overspill from the urban areas in Kowloon and Hong Kong Island. Despite of rapid development of the new towns with over 3 million population, the Hong Kong Government confines built-up areas to several areas and reserves large part of the land as country parks.

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. It is hard to support millions of residents rush into the Kowloon Peninsula and Hong Kong Island.

[edit]