Hong Kong - WikiTravel

Hong Kong  (meaning "fragrant harbour") is a place with multiple personalities, as a result of being Cantonese Chinese with a long-time British influence. Today, the former British colony is a major tourism destination for China’s increasingly affluent population. It is also an important hub in the Chinese diaspora with global connections to many of the world’s cities. It is a unique destination that has absorbed people and cultural influences from places as diverse as Vietnam and Vancouver.

The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China is much more than a harbour city. The traveller weary of its crowded streets may be tempted to describe it as “Hong Kongcrete”. Yet, this SAR with its cloudy mountains and rocky islands is mostly a rural landscape. Much of the countryside is classified as Country Park and, although 7 million people are never far away, it is possible to find pockets of wilderness that will reward the more intrepid tourist.

Hong Kong has a subtropical climate with at least one season to match your comfort zone. Boasting one of the world’s best airports, it is the ideal stopover for those who wish to travel deeper into the Orient. 

Hong Kong – Lonely Planet

Rumours of Hong Kong’s demise have been greatly exaggerated. More than 10 years after its handover from Britain to China, this entrepreneurial, irrepressible and singular trading city is booming again.

After plagues real, financial and political, normal service has resumed. This tiny territory is punching well above its size and weight once more, only these days with a self-confidence it never had under its former masters. Hong Kong has never been busier. Nor has it ever felt as comfortable with its status, as a part once again of its original motherland but separate, too, largely governing its own affairs and much better off for it. Almost 7 million people call a territory of 1100 sq km home, squeezing onto only 10% of the available land space. A flood of mainland and international visitors, meanwhile, crowds in to see what all the fuss is about. Multitudes seek standing or sitting room here, bringing with them smog, odour, clutter and clatter.

Hong Kong means different things to different people. For some it is the view from the Peak by day or Hong Kong Island’s skyline by night as the skyscrapers flush their neon rainbows, competing like tetchy cuttlefish to out-display each other. It can be about a lingering morning of tea and bite-sized dim sum, or a multidish Chinese banquet. Others – hikers, birders, climbers – say nothing beats the Hong Kong countryside for its beauty, facilities and accessibility.

It is all these things, of course; a city of teeming streets and empty wilderness, dazzling modernity and traditional observances. Brash, buccaneering and Westernised, yet conservatively minded and Chinese to its core, Hong Kong surprises, delights and confounds with its cheerful contradictions and energetic inconsistency.