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Hong Kong
Hong Kong lies on the south-east coast of China, adjoining the province of Guandong (Kwangtung). It is just inside the tropics, less than 160 kilometres south of the tropic of Cancer, and lies between latitudes 22° 9′ and 22° 37′ N. and longitudes 113° 52′ and 114° 30′ E.
Founded as a British trading depot in 1841, the cession of the Island to Great Britain was confirmed by the Treaty of Nanking in 1842. The area on which the main urban part of Kowloon now stands, together with Stonecutters Island in the harbour, Ap Lei Chau and Green Island, was ceded by the Convention of Peking in 1860; and in 1898 the New Territories, which consist of the rural area north of Kowloon and the islands around Hong Kong, were leased to Great Britain for 99 years. Hong Kong was occupied by the Japanese from 1941 to 1945, and in the following years made a remarkably rapid recovery.
The territory consists of the island of Hong Kong and portion of the Chinese mainland to the North, together with 236 adjacent islands ranging from Lantau with an area of about 141.7 square kilometres, to uninhabited rocky islets. A peninsula, on which Kowloon stands, juts southward from the mainland towards Victoria on Hong Kong Island. Between the island and the peninsular lies the harbour, one of the finest natural ports in the world. Much of the built-up area surrounding the harbour has been reclaimed or levelled.
The area of land including recent reclamation is approximately 1,061.72 sq km (Hong Kong and adjacent Islands 78.12 sq km, Kowloon 10.39 sq km, Stonecutters Island 0.75 sq km, New Territories (leased) 972.37 sq km). British waters are bounded on the north by the shores of Deep Bay and Mirs Bay, between which lies the land frontier with China.
The greater part of the territory consists of steep, unproductive hillside, in some parts covered with dense scrub. The erosion which resulted from indiscriminate felling of trees during the Japanese wartime occupation has been extensively repaired under a vigorous programme of afforestation. Cultivation is confined mainly to the narrow valleys. The coastline is sharply indented. A steep range of hills divides Kowloon from the New Territories to the North, in the centre of which is the highest mountain-Tai Mo Shan, 957 metres; Lantau Peak is 933 metres and Victoria Peak on Hong Kong Island 550 metres high.
The climate is sub-tropical and governed by monsoons, the winter being cool and dry, the summer hot and humid. The normal monthly mean temperature varies from 16°C in January to 29°C in July. The actual temperature rarely rises above 35°C or falls below 4°C. The average annual rainfall is 2,246 81 per cent of which falls between May and September. The mean relative humidity exceeds 80 per cent during the summer but in early winter sometimes falls as low as 15 per cent. The temperature range is 0° to 36°C and the annual rainfall has ranged from 901 mm to 3,100 mm. The Royal Observatory provides all meteorological information in Hong Kong.
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With the exception of the years from 1931 to 1961, censuses have been taken every 10 years. In 1961 the population stood at 3.133,131; by 1971 it had increased to 3,948,179. By March 1981 it was 5,109,812. The registered number of live births and deaths for the first 10 months of 1981 were 70,694 and 20,533 respectively. According to the 1981 Census findings, the current population was 5.11 million, of which 24.8 per cent were below the age of 15. The median age of the population was 26, compared with 22 in 1971.
Hong Kong is one of the most densely-populated areas in the world. According to the 1981 Census the density for the metropolitan areas of Hong Kong Island, Kowloon, New Kowloon and Tsuen Wan was 21,595 per sq km; with 828 per sq km for the New Territories.
98 per cent of the population can be described as Chinese on the basis of language and place of origin, although about 57 per cent are British subjects by virtue of Hong Kong birth. Most of these people, and the greater part of the immigrant population, originated from Kwangtung province in China. The Cantonese group forms the largest community, while the second largest group is Sze Yap, followed by the Chiu Chow group. The remaining Chinese population have their origins in other areas of Guangdong (Kwangtung), Shanghai and the coastal provinces of China.
An account of religious practices in Hong Kong embraces traditional Chinese beliefs, Taoism, the religious aspects of Confucian teaching, Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism and a kaleidoscope of Christian sects. Among the Buddhist and Taoist believers, almost every household has its ancestral shrine and countless shops have a God Shelf, with images of the most favoured of the hundreds of divinities.
Buddhism and Taoism have in fact by far the greatest number of followers. The territory has more than 600 Buddhist and Taoist temples which are crowded at festivals and on the first and 15th days of
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