Kronenburg Estates S.L.

Hong Kong, officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China, is an autonomous territory on the eastern side of the Pearl River estuary in southern China. With over 7.4 million Hongkongers of various nationalities in a territory of 1,104 square kilometres, Hong Kong is the fourth-most densely populated region in the world.

Hong Kong was formerly a colony of the British Empire, after Qing China ceded Hong Kong Island at the conclusion of the First Opium War in 1842. Originally a lightly populated area of farming and fishing villages, the territory has become one of the most significant financial centres and trade ports in the world. Hong Kong remained under British control until 1997, when it was returned to China. As a special administrative region, Hong Kong's system of government is separate from that in mainland China.

As the world's seventh-largest trading entity, the territory's legal tender, Hong Kong dollar, is the 13th-most traded currency. Hong Kong's services-dominated economy is characterised by competitive simple taxation and supported by its common law judicial system. Although the city boasts one of the highest per capita incomes in the world, it suffers severe income inequality.

The territory features the most skyscrapers in the world, surrounding Victoria Harbour, which lies in the centre of the city's dense urban region. It has a very high Human Development Index ranking and the seventh-highest life expectancy in the world. Over 90% of its population makes use of well-developed public transportation, but air pollution from neighbouring industrial areas of mainland China has resulted in a high level of atmospheric particulates.

Geography

Hong Kong is located on the southern coast of China, 60 km east of Macau, at the mouth of the Pearl River estuary on its eastern side. It is surrounded by the South China Sea on all sides except its northern boundary, which neighbours the Guangdong city of Shenzhen along the Sham Chun River. The territory's 2,755 km2 area consists of Hong Kong Island, Kowloon Peninsula, the New Territories, Lantau Island, and over 200 other offshore islands. Of the total area, 1,106 km2 is land and 1,649 km2 is water. The territory's highest point is Tai Mo Shan, at 957 metres above sea level. Urban development is concentrated on Kowloon Peninsula, Hong Kong Island, and in new towns located throughout the New Territories. Much of this is built on reclaimed land, due to the lack of developable flat land; an area of 70 km2, representing 6 per cent of total land or about 25 per cent of developed space in the territory, is reclaimed from the sea.

Undeveloped terrain is largely hilly to mountainous with very little flat land, consisting mostly of grassland, woodland, shrubland, or is used for agriculture. About 40 per cent of the remaining land area is reserved as country parks and nature reserves. The territory has a highly diverse ecosystem: over 3,000 species of vascular plants occur in the region, 300 of which are native to Hong Kong, as well as thousands of other insect, avian, and marine species.

Climate

Hong Kong has a humid subtropical climate (Köppen Cwa), characteristic of southern China. Summer is hot and humid with occasional showers and thunderstorms, with warm air coming from the southwest. Typhoons most often occur in summer, sometimes resulting in flooding or landslides. Winters are mild and usually start sunny, becoming cloudier towards February; the occasional cold front brings strong, cooling winds from the north. The most temperate seasons are spring, which can be changeable, and autumn, which is generally sunny and dry. Snowfall is extremely rare, and usually occurs in areas of high elevation. Hong Kong averages 1,709 hours of sunshine per year, while the highest and lowest ever recorded temperatures at the Hong Kong Observatory are 36.6 °C on 22 August 2017 and 0.0 °C on 18 January 1893, respectively. The highest and lowest ever recorded temperatures across all of Hong Kong, on the other hand, are 39.0 °C at Wetland Park on 22 August 2017 and −6.0 °C at Tai Mo Shan on 24 January 2016, respectively.

Demographics

The Census and Statistics Department estimated the population to be 7,409,800 people as of December 2017. The overwhelming majority (92%) of the population is Han Chinese, the majority of whom are Taishanese, Teochew, Hakka, and a variety of other Cantonese peoples. The remaining 8% is composed of non-ethnic Chinese minorities, mostly Filipinos, Indonesians, and South Asians. About half of the population has some form of British nationality, a legacy of colonial rule. 3.4 million residents hold British National (Overseas) status and a further 260,000 British citizens reside in the territory. The vast majority of them also hold Chinese nationality, which was automatically granted to all Chinese residents at the transfer of sovereignty.

The predominant language is Cantonese, a variety of Chinese originating in Guangdong. 94.6% of the population speak Cantonese, 88.9% as a first language and 5.7% as a second language. Slightly over half of the population (53.2%) speaks English, the other official language, though only 4.3% use it natively and 48.9% as a second language. Code-switching is common among the bilingual population, mixing English and Cantonese in informal conversation. Post-handover governments have promoted Mandarin, which is now about as prevalent as English; 48.6% of the population can speak it, with 1.9% using it as a first language and 46.7% as a second language. Traditional Chinese characters are used in writing, rather than the simplified characters used in the mainland.

Of residents aged 15 and older, 81.3% completed lower secondary schooling, 66.4% graduated from upper secondary, 31.6% attended a non-degree tertiary program, and 24% earned a bachelor's degree or higher. Mandatory education has contributed to an adult literacy rate of 95.7%. While comparatively lower than that of other developed economies, this rate is due to the influx of refugees from mainland China during the post-war colonial era. Much of the elderly population were not formally educated as a result of war and poverty.

Life expectancy in Hong Kong is 81.7 years for males and 87.7 years for females as of 2017, making it the seventh-highest in the world. Cancer, pneumonia, heart disease, cerebrovascular disease, and severe injuries caused by accidents are the five leading causes of death in the territory. The universal public system is funded by general tax revenue and treatment is highly subsidised; on average, 95 per cent of healthcare costs is covered by the government.

Income inequality has risen since the transfer of sovereignty, as the region's ageing population has gradually added to the number of economically inactive people. While median household income has steadily increased in the last decade, the wage gap remains high. The 90th percentile of earners receives 41 per cent of all income. The city also has the most billionaires per capita, with one per 109,657 people. Despite government efforts to reduce the growing disparity, median income for the top 10 per cent of earners is 44 times that of the bottom 10 per cent.

Religion

Among the religious population, the traditional "three teachings" of China (Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism) have the most adherents (20%), followed by Christianity (12%), and Islam (4%). Followers of other religions, including Sikhism, Hinduism, Judaism, and the Bahá'í Faith, generally ethnically originate from the same region as their faith.