ENG-1955 — Page 253

198

HONG KONG ANNUAL REPORT

from the sea. The town of Kowloon now covers the entire peninsula and stretches without interruption northward into the New Territories, the boundary of which is noticeable only from the name of Boundary Street, which marks it. Further on, the Kowloon hills set a final limit to this northward urban expansion, but around the sides of the harbour, westward toward Laichikok and eastward to Ngau Tau Kok, Kowloon is extending its urban arms to embrace several rural areas with villages established there for hundreds of years. Kowloon contains the Colony's main industrial area, one of the two principal commercial dockyards, the largest wharves for ocean-going ships and, in the area known as Kowloon Tong, a large residential suburb. At the extreme southern tip of the peninsula, known as Tsimshatsui, is the terminus of the Kowloon-Canton Railway, which passes from Kowloon under the Kowloon hills and through the New Territories to Canton.

A large part of the New Territories, both islands and mainland, is mountainous and barren. The highest point, situated approximately in the centre of the mainland, is Taimoshan (3,142 ft.). The second and third highest points are both on Lantao Island: Lantao Peak, or Fu Yung Shan (3,061 ft.), which is the western of the two, and Sunset Peak (2,857 ft.). The fourth highest point is Ma On Shan on the mainland (2,296 ft.). The north-western slopes of Taimoshan descend to the Colony's largest area of cultivable land, in the centre of which is the important market town of Yuen Long. Further out the land extends to marshes and oyster- beds on the verge of Deep Bay.

The eastern half of the New Territories mainland consists of irregular mountain masses deeply indented by arms of the sea and narrow valleys. Villages are in general only found where there is flat watered land, in valleys or on small plateaux. Much of the upper land in the areas nearest to Kowloon has been eroded, one of the unfortunate results of the Japanese occupation, when 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. For details of forestry, see the Production Chapter.

The 198* 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

* See note at the end of this Chapter.