GEOGRAPHY AND CLIMATE
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tremendous numbers of trees were cut for firewood. At the end of the war virtually the only woods that still remained were those preserved in the neighbourhood of villages for geomantic reasons.
The 235 islands of the New Territories include many that are waterless and uninhabited. Productive land is even scarcer than on the mainland. The principal cultivated areas are on Lantau, Lamma and Ma Wan, where water supplies are good. Apart from Lantau, which is nearly double the size of Hong Kong Island, most of the islands are small. They range in character from the thickly-populated Cheung Chau, with its large fishing community, soya and preserved fruit factories, and junk-building yards, to places like the Ninepins, which are no more than granite rock, used seasonally, and by day only, by fishermen drying fish or repairing nets.
CLIMATE
Although the Colony lies just within the tropics, it enjoys a variety of weather from season to season which is unusual for tropical regions. This is mainly due to Hong Kong's geographical position on the south-east coast of the Asiatic continent, with the consequent profound effect of the monsoons. The winter monsoon normally first sets in during September and is predomi- nant from October to mid-March, although it can occur as late as May. Early winter is a most pleasant time of year, when the weather is generally dry and sunny. After the New Year the sky is more often clouded, though rainfall remains slight; dull overcast days with a chilly wind are frequent. Coastal fogs occur from time to time in early spring during breaks in the monsoon, when warm south-easterly winds may temporarily displace the cool north- easterlies.
The summer is the rainy season, three-quarters of the average annual rainfall of 84.76 inches occurring during the period May to September. The summer monsoon is not so persistent as the north-east monsoon of winter, and, although it can occur from mid-April to September, it is only predominant from early June to early August. The weather during the summer is continuously hot and humid, and often cloudy and showery with occasional thunderstorms.