22
Geography
THIS Chapter, and those which follow on the history of the Colony and its system of government, present the background picture against which the reader may view the detailed descriptions in other chapters of the Report.
GEOGRAPHICAL SETTING
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The Colony of Hong Kong is on the south-east coast of China and adjoins the province of Kwangtung. It is just inside the tropics, being less than 100 miles south of the tropic of Cancer, and lies between latitudes 22°9′ and 22°37′N and longitudes 113°52′ and 114°30′E. The twin cities of Victoria on Hong Kong Island and Kowloon on the mainland stand on either side of the harbour which is about 90 miles south-east of Canton and 40 miles east of Portuguese Macau. The jet age has brought the Colony barely 24 hours away from Britain: the shortest air route across Eurasia between London and Hong Kong is 5,965 miles.
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The total land area of the Colony is 3984 square miles, made up as follows:
(a) Hong Kong Island, including a number of small adjacent
islets: 29 square miles
(b) Kowloon and Stonecutters Island: 3 square miles
(c) The New Territories, which consist of a substantial section of the mainland and 235 islands: 365 square miles.
TOPOGRAPHY AND GEOLOGY
Hong Kong is part of a series of intruded domes of granitic rocks which cover south-east China. There are only small areas of sedimentary rocks in the Colony. The age relationships of the major groups of rocks are associated with the intrusions and mountain building of the Jurasside, Laramide and Alpine revolu- tions. These intrusions made the conditions favourable for the formation of minerals of some importance. Galena, silver,