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 detailed descriptions in other chapters of the report can best be viewed. Some repetition is inevitable, but the reader who knows Hong Kong well will no doubt excuse this in the interest of others who are not so fortunate.
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GEOGRAPHICAL SETTING
The Colony of Hong Kong is on the south east coast of China, next to 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 lie 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.
The total land area of the Colony is 398 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: 33 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 covers 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
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