Hong Kong (GPS: 22 15 N, 114 10 E) located in Eastern Asia, bordering the South China Sea and China. The country’s area measurements are total: 1,108 sq km; land: 1,073 sq km, water: 35 sq km. This sovereign state is six times the size of Washington, DC. The total irrigated land is 10 sq km (2012).
One of the important features of Hong Kong: Consists of a mainland area (the New Territories) and more than 200 islands.
It’s significant, and at the same time, the principal city, N/A’s GPS coordinates are N/A. N/A’s local time is N/A. The capital’s time difference: N/A.
Occupied by the UK in 1841, Hong Kong was formally ceded by China the following year; various adjacent lands were added later in the 19th century. According to an agreement signed by China and the UK on 19 December 1984, Hong Kong became the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China on 1 July 1997. In this agreement, China promised that, under its “one country, two systems” formula, China’s socialist economic system would not be imposed on Hong Kong and that Hong Kong would enjoy a “high degree of autonomy” in all matters except foreign and defense affairs for the subsequent 50 years.
Hong Kong’s names conventional long form: Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, conventional short form: Hong Kong, local long form: Heung Kong Takpit Hangching Ku (Eitel/Dyer-Ball); Xianggang Tebie Xingzhengqu (Hanyu Pinyin), local short form: Heung Kong (Eitel/Dyer-Ball); Xianggang (Hanyu Pinyin)abbreviation: HK, etymology: probably an imprecise phonetic rendering of the Cantonese name meaning “fragrant harbor.” Probably an imprecise phonetic rendering of the Cantonese name meaning “fragrant harbor.”
Hong Kong’s terrain is typically hilly to mountainous with steep slopes; lowlands in the north. The country’s mean elevation: N/A, elevation extremes; lowest point: the South China Sea 0 m, highest point: Tai Mo Shan 958 m.
The country’s general climate; subtropical monsoon: cool and humid in winter, hot and rainy from spring through summer, warm and sunny in fall.
The total number of border countries is 1. Regional border: China 33 km are the neighboring nations with the indicated border lengths. Hong Kong’s coastline is 733 km, while its marital claims are: territorial sea: 3 nautical miles. Waterways: N/A. Land use: agricultural land: 5%; arable land 3.2%; permanent crops 0.9%; permanent pasture 0.9%; forest: 0%; other: 95% (2011 estimate).
The population in Hong Kong 7,213,338 (July 2018 estimate), urban population: 100% of total population (2015), major urban area’s population: Hong Kong 7.26 million (2014), while Hong Kong has N/A. Their spoken languages are: Cantonese (official language) 89.5%, English (official language) 3.5%, Mandarin (official language) 1.4%, other Chinese dialects 4%, other 1.6% (2011 estimate). The main religions in Hong Kong are an eclectic mixture of local religions, 90%, Christian 10%. The nation uses (a) a mixed legal system of common law based on the English model and Chinese customary law (family and land tenure). It is a(n) presidential limited democracy, a special administrative region of the PRC, National holiday(s) National Day (Anniversary of the Founding of the People’s Republic of China), 1 October (1949).
Economic overview for the country: Hong Kong has a free market economy, highly dependent on international trade and finance – the value of goods and services trade, including the sizable share of re-exports, is about four times GDP. Hong Kong has no tariffs on imported goods, and it levies excise duties on only four commodities, whether imported or produced locally: hard alcohol, tobacco, oil, and methyl alcohol. There are no quotas or dumping laws. Hong Kong continues to link its currency closely to the US dollar, maintaining an arrangement established in 1983. Excess liquidity, low-interest rates, and a tight housing supply have caused Hong Kong property prices to rise rapidly.
The lower and middle-income segments of the population increasingly find housing unaffordable. Hong Kong’s open economy has left it exposed to the global economic situation. Its continued reliance on foreign trade and investment makes it vulnerable to renewed global financial market volatility or a slowdown in the global economy. Mainland China has long been Hong Kong’s largest trading partner, accounting for about half of Hong Kong’s total trade by value. Hong Kong’s natural resources are limited, and food and raw materials must be imported. As a result of China’s easing of travel restrictions, mainland tourists’ number to the territory surged from 4.5 million in 2001 to 47.3 million in 2014, outnumbering visitors from all other countries combined. After peaking in 2014, overall tourist arrivals dropped 2.5% in 2015 and 4.5% in 2016. The tourism sector rebounded in 2017, with visitor arrivals rising 3.2% to 58.47 million. Travelers from Mainland China totaled 44.45 million, accounting for 76% of the total.
The Hong Kong Government promotes the Special Administrative Region (SAR) as the preferred business hub for renminbi (RMB) internationalization. Hong Kong residents are allowed to establish RMB-denominated savings accounts, RMB-denominated corporate and Chinese government bonds have been issued in Hong Kong, RMB trade settlement is allowed, and investment schemes such as the Renminbi Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor (RQFII) Program was first launched in Hong Kong. Offshore RMB activities experienced a setback; however after the People’s Bank of China changed the way it set the central parity rate in August 2015. RMB deposits in Hong Kong fell from 1.0 trillion RMB at the end of 2014 to 559 billion RMB at the end of 2017, while RMB trade settlement handled by banks in Hong Kong also shrank from 6.8 trillion RMB in 2015 to 3.9 trillion RMB in 2017. Hong Kong has also established itself as the premier stock market for Chinese firms seeking to list abroad. In 2015, mainland Chinese companies constituted about 50% of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange firms and accounted for about 66% of the exchange’s market capitalization. As Hong Kong’s manufacturing industry moved to the mainland during the past decade, its service industry has grown rapidly. In 2014, Hong Kong and China signed a new agreement on achieving basic liberalization of trade in services in Guangdong Province under the Closer Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA), adopted in 2003 to forge closer ties between Hong Kong the mainland. The new measures, which took effect in March 2015, cover a negative list and a most-favored treatment provision.
Based on the Guangdong Agreement, the Agreement on Trade in Services signed in November 2015 further enhanced liberalization, including extending the implementation of the majority of Guangdong pilot liberalization measures to the whole Mainland, reducing the restrictive measures in the negative list, and adding measures in the positive lists for cross-border services as well as cultural and telecommunications services. In June 2017, the Investment Agreement and the Agreement on Economic and Technical Cooperation (Ecotech Agreement) were signed under the framework of CEPA. Hong Kong’s economic integration with the mainland is most evident in the banking and finance sectors. Initiatives like the Hong Kong-Shanghai Stock Connect, the Hong Kong- Shenzhen Stock Connect the Mutual Recognition of Funds, and the Bond Connect scheme are important steps towards opening up the Mainland’s capital markets and have reinforced Hong Kong’s role as China’s leading offshore RMB market. Additional connect schemes such as ETF Connect (for exchange-traded fund products) are also under exploration by Hong Kong authorities. In 2017, Chief Executive Carrie LAM announced plans to increase government spending on research and development, education, and technological innovation to spur continued economic growth through greater sector diversification.
Natural resources of Hong Kong: outstanding deepwater harbor, feldspar.
Main export partners for Hong Kong, Southeast Asia, are China 53.7%, US 9.5% (2015) for electrical machinery and appliances, textiles, apparel, footwear, watches and clocks, toys, plastics, precious stones, printed material, while the main import partners for the country are: China 49%, Japan 6.4%, Singapore 6.1%, US 5.2%, South Korea 4.3% (2015) for raw materials and semi-manufactures, consumer goods, capital goods, foodstuffs, fuel (most is re-exported).
When you visit this country in Southeast Asia, consider the natural hazards in Hong Kong: Occasional typhoons, while infectious diseases are N/A. Also, note that Hong Kong faces the following environmental issues: Air and water pollution from rapid urbanization, urban waste pollution, Industrial pollution.
You may also be interested in the countries next to Hong Kong around its total: 33 km border, like China.
