Hong Kong

Human settlement in the area now known as Hong Kong dates back to the late Paleolithic and early Neolithic era, but the name Hong Kong (香港) did not appear on written record until the Treaty of Nanking of 1842. The area's earliest recorded European visitor was Jorge Álvares, a Portuguese mariner who arrived in 1513.

In 1839 the refusal by Qing Dynasty authorities to import opium resulted in the First Opium War between China and Britain. Hong Kong Island became occupied by British forces in 1841, and was formally ceded to Britain under the Treaty of Nanking at the end of the war. The British established a Crown Colony with the founding of Victoria City the following year. In 1860, after China's defeat in the Second Opium War, Kowloon Peninsula south of Boundary Street and Stonecutter's Island were ceded to Britain under the Convention of Peking. In 1898 Britain obtained a 99-year lease of Lantau Island and the adjacent northern lands, which became known as the New Territories.
Hong Kong in the late nineteenth century was a major trading post of the British Empire.
Japanese troops enter Hong Kong and march on Queen's Road led by Lieutenant General Takashi Sakai and Vice Admiral Masaichi Niimi in December 1941, after the British surrender. (Photo courtesy of Imperial War Museum, UK.)

During the first half of the 20th century, Hong Kong was a free port, serving as an entrepôt of the British Empire. The British introduced an education system based on their own model, while the local Chinese population had little contact with the European community of wealthy tai-pans settled near Victoria Peak.