Hong Kong (Chinese: 香港, Cantonese: [hœ́ːŋ.kɔ̌ːŋ] (About this soundlisten)), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China (HKSAR; simplified Chinese: 中华人民共和国香港特别行政区; traditional Chinese: 中華人民共和國香港特別行政區), is a metropolitan area and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta in South China. With over 7.5 million residents of various nationalities[d] in a 1,104-square-kilometre (426 sq mi) territory, Hong Kong is one of the most densely populated places in the world.
Hong Kong became a colony of the British Empire after the Qing Empire ceded Hong Kong Island at the end of the First Opium War in 1842.[16] The colony expanded to the Kowloon Peninsula in 1860 after the Second Opium War and was further extended when Britain obtained a 99-year lease of the New Territories in 1898.[17][18] British Hong Kong was occupied by Imperial Japan from 1941 to 1945; British administration resumed after the surrender of Japan.[19] The whole territory was transferred to China in 1997.[20] As a special administrative region, Hong Kong maintains separate governing and economic systems from that of mainland China under the principle of “one country, two systems”.[21][e]
Originally a sparsely populated area of farming and fishing villages,[16] the territory has become one of the world’s most significant financial centres and commercial ports.[22] It is the world’s tenth-largest exporter and ninth-largest importer.[23][24] Hong Kong has a major capitalist service economy characterised by low taxation and free trade, and its currency, the Hong Kong dollar, is the eighth most traded currency in the world.[25] Hong Kong is home to the second-highest number of billionaires of any city in the world,[26] the highest number of billionaires of any city in Asia, and the largest concentration of ultra high-net-worth individuals of any city in the world.[27][28] Although the city has one of the highest per capita incomes in the world, severe income inequality exists among the population.[29]