Hong Kong

Hong Kong SAR

  • Population:7.5M
  • Timezone:HKT (UTC+8)
  • IATA:HKG
  • Currency:The Hong Kong dollar is the local currency; cards and the stored-value travel card cover most spending, but keep cash for market stalls, small diners and the island ferries.
  • Key Areas:Central — towers, lanes and the Mid-Levels escalator · Sheung Wan — antiques, incense temples, dried seafood · Wan Chai and Causeway Bay — wet markets and shopping · Tsim Sha Tsui — museums, promenade, harbour views

Overview

Hong Kong is far greener than its skyline suggests — most of the territory is country park, and the best days alternate a dense district with a ridge walk.

Culture

Build days around meals. Yum cha — tea and dim sum — is best late morning and is meant to be noisy; point at trolleys where they still run, or tick a paper order sheet. Cha chaan teng are the local diners and the fastest way into everyday eating: milk tea strong enough to stand a spoon in, pineapple buns with a slab of cold butter, macaroni soup at breakfast. Roast meats are ordered by the plate over rice, and the cooked-food centres above wet markets are cheaper and better than most restaurants. Festivals: Lunar New Year, with flower markets and parades, Cheung Chau Bun Festival, in spring, Dragon Boat races, early summer, Mid-Autumn Festival lanterns. Museums: Hong Kong Museum of History, Tsim Sha Tsui, M+ and the West Kowloon Cultural District, Hong Kong Palace Museum, Hong Kong Museum of Art, on the waterfront.

Practical Info

Safety: Hong Kong is a low-crime city and ordinary urban precautions are enough. The genuine hazards are weather and terrain: summer heat and humidity catch out hikers far more often than difficulty does, sudden rainstorms make trails slippery and streams impassable, and the typhoon signal system can close the city at short notice — check warnings before heading for the hills. Language: Cantonese is the everyday language and English is widely used in signage, transport and business; menus in local diners may be Chinese-only, where pointing works perfectly well. Currency: The Hong Kong dollar is the local currency; cards and the stored-value travel card cover most spending, but keep cash for market stalls, small diners and the island ferries.

Travel

Hong Kong is pictured as a wall of towers, and the wall is real, but it occupies a narrow band; most of the territory is steep, green and protected as country park, which is why you can be on a summit ridge forty minutes after leaving a subway platform. Grasping the geography early explains everything else: Hong Kong Island on the south side of the harbour, dense and vertical; Kowloon on the north side, flatter and louder, with the markets; the New Territories behind it, running to the border; and the outlying islands, of which Lantau, Cheung Chau and Lamma are the ones visitors reach. The harbour between Island and Kowloon is the centre of gravity, and the Star Ferry across it gives the best view in the city for less than the price of a coffee. Eating is the other organising principle — yum cha late morning, the local diners for milk tea and pineapple buns, roast goose hanging in shop windows. Getting around is genuinely easy: the metro is fast and signed in English, one stored-value card covers everything including the ferries, and the Island's double-decker trams are slow, cheap and the best way to watch the street go by. Come in autumn if you can — October to early December is dry, clear and comfortable.

Crossing the harbour is the first thing to do. The Star Ferry runs between the Island and Tsim Sha Tsui in under ten minutes for a fare that has stayed almost symbolic; sit on the open upper deck and cross at dusk, and you get the skyline from water level as it lights up — for a fraction of any harbour cruise and better than most of them. On the Kowloon side, the promenade runs east from the pier with the whole Island frontage opposite, and it is where the nightly light show is watched.

Frequently asked questions

October to early December is the clear winner — dry, warm, comfortable, and the season when the hills are genuinely pleasant. Spring, roughly March to May, is humid and often fogged in, and low cloud can hide the Peak view for days. Summer is hot, very wet and the typhoon season; when a high signal is hoisted the city shuts down, transport included. Winter is mild and dry and good for city walking, though the ridges get cold and windy. If your trip depends on the harbour view or on hiking, weight the calendar heavily towards autumn.

Diplomatic missions in Hong Kong SAR

2 embassies based in this city, grouped by region.

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