1.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
2.
Sky100
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Sky100 is a 360-degree indoor observation deck on the 100th floor of the International Commerce Centre, in West Kowloon, Hong Kong. It was designed by architecture firm Kohn Pedersen Fox. Sky100 is located two floors below The Ritz-Carlton, Hong Kong in the same building, visitors reach the observation deck using high speed elevators, which travel from the 2/F entrance to the 100/F in 60 seconds. Sky100s Advanced Telescope provides sunny day setting and pre-recorded views from bright days, other settings include night views and fireworks. Interactive touch screens dot the deck, offering facts, tips, the deck offers views of Hong Kong Island, full view of the Kowloon Peninsula and—weather permitting—the ridges that gave Kowloon its name and Tai Mo Shan in the background. There is a café serving local snacks and refreshments as well as a restaurant serving international cuisines on the 101st floor. Since 2012, sky100 has also served as the point for the annual Race to ICC-100—SHKP Vertical Run for the Chest, organised by Sun Hung Kai Properties. The race begins at Level 8 and winds its way up the staircases to sky100. The event is held in early December. Video of Observation Deck on YouTube Official website CNNGo. com Virtual Tour Race to ICC-100—SHKP Vertical Run for the Chest
3.
International Commerce Centre
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The International Commerce Centre is a 108-storey,484 m commercial skyscraper completed in 2010 in West Kowloon, Hong Kong. It is a part of the Union Square project on top of Kowloon Station and it was the 4th tallest building in the world when its construction was completed in 2010. Now, it is the worlds 10th tallest building by height, worlds fifth tallest building by number of floors, notable amenities include The Ritz-Carlton, Hong Kong hotel and an observatory called Sky100. The ICC faces the second-tallest skyscraper in Hong Kong, the 2 International Finance Centre directly across Victoria Harbour in Central, IFC was also developed by Sun Hung Kai Properties, along with another major Hong Kong developer, Henderson Land. MTR Corporation Limited and Sun Hung Kai Properties, Hong Kongs metro operator, known in development as Union Square Phase 7, its current name was officially announced in 2005. The International Commerce Centre was completed in phases from 2007 to 2010, the tower opened in 2011, with the Ritz-Carlton opening in late March and the observatory in early April. The height had been scaled back from earlier plans due to regulations that did not allow buildings to be taller than the surrounding mountains, the original proposal for this building was called Kowloon Station Phase 7 and it was designed to be 574 m tall with 102 floors. It would have risen 162 m over the then-current tallest in Hong Kong,2 International Finance Centre, the tower was designed by the American architectural firm Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates in association with Wong & Ouyang Ltd. Branding and marketing were handled by Wordsearch, construction work was temporarily halted on 13 September 2009 due to an elevator shaft accident which killed six workers. The building has 108 floors above ground and 4 below ground, due to prevalence of tetraphobia in Hong Kong, floors that would have included the number 4 were omitted. Therefore, it is marketed as a 118-storey building, in its basement is the Elements shopping mall, which opened in October 2007. A five-star hotel, The Ritz-Carlton, Hong Kong occupies floors 102 to 108, the worlds highest swimming pool and bar can be found on the top 108th floor. The building also contains a deck on the 100th floor called Sky100 which opened to the public in April 2011. The 101st floor is leased to a number of five-star restaurants, the rest of the building, except the lobby, contains class-A office space. The ICC Light and Music Show is designed by lighting designer Hirohito Totsune who already designed the system of the Tokyo Skytree. Similar to the daily “A Symphony of Lights Show” in Victoria Harbour, Elements shopping mall official website Wong & Ouyang Ltd. More than half-a-century of architectural experience in Hong Kong, section International Commerce Centre and The Cullinan, pp. 31–33
4.
Traditional Chinese characters
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Traditional Chinese characters are Chinese characters in any character set that does not contain newly created characters or character substitutions performed after 1946. They are most commonly the characters in the character sets of Taiwan, of Hong Kong. Currently, a number of overseas Chinese online newspapers allow users to switch between both sets. In contrast, simplified Chinese characters are used in mainland China, Singapore, the debate on traditional and simplified Chinese characters has been a long-running issue among Chinese communities. Although simplified characters are taught and endorsed by the government of Mainland China, Traditional characters are used informally in regions in China primarily in handwriting and also used for inscriptions and religious text. They are often retained in logos or graphics to evoke yesteryear, nonetheless, the vast majority of media and communications in China is dominated by simplified characters. Taiwan has never adopted Simplified Chinese characters since it is ruled by the Republic of China, the use of simplified characters in official documents is even prohibited by the government in Taiwan. Simplified characters are not well understood in general, although some stroke simplifications that have incorporated into Simplified Chinese are in common use in handwriting. For example, while the name of Taiwan is written as 臺灣, similarly, in Hong Kong and Macau, Traditional Chinese has been the legal written form since colonial times. In recent years, because of the influx of mainland Chinese tourists, today, even government websites use simplified Chinese, as they answer to the Beijing government. This has led to concerns by residents to protect their local heritage. In Southeast Asia, the Chinese Filipino community continues to be one of the most conservative regarding simplification, while major public universities are teaching simplified characters, many well-established Chinese schools still use traditional characters. Publications like the Chinese Commercial News, World News, and United Daily News still use traditional characters, on the other hand, the Philippine Chinese Daily uses simplified. Aside from local newspapers, magazines from Hong Kong, such as the Yazhou Zhoukan, are found in some bookstores. In case of film or television subtitles on DVD, the Chinese dub that is used in Philippines is the same as the one used in Taiwan and this is because the DVDs belongs to DVD Region Code 3. Hence, most of the subtitles are in Traditional Characters, overseas Chinese in the United States have long used traditional characters. A major influx of Chinese immigrants to the United States occurred during the half of the 19th century. Therefore, the majority of Chinese language signage in the United States, including street signs, Traditional Chinese characters are called several different names within the Chinese-speaking world
5.
Simplified Chinese characters
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Simplified Chinese characters are standardized Chinese characters prescribed in the Table of General Standard Chinese Characters for use in mainland China. Along with traditional Chinese characters, it is one of the two character sets of the contemporary Chinese written language. The government of the Peoples Republic of China in mainland China has promoted them for use in printing since the 1950s and 1960s in an attempt to increase literacy and they are officially used in the Peoples Republic of China and Singapore. Traditional Chinese characters are used in Hong Kong, Macau. Overseas Chinese communities generally tend to use traditional characters, Simplified Chinese characters may be referred to by their official name above or colloquially. Strictly, the latter refers to simplifications of character structure or body, character forms that have existed for thousands of years alongside regular, Simplified character forms were created by decreasing the number of strokes and simplifying the forms of a sizable proportion of traditional Chinese characters. Some simplifications were based on popular cursive forms embodying graphic or phonetic simplifications of the traditional forms, some characters were simplified by applying regular rules, for example, by replacing all occurrences of a certain component with a simplified version of the component. Variant characters with the pronunciation and identical meaning were reduced to a single standardized character. Finally, many characters were left untouched by simplification, and are identical between the traditional and simplified Chinese orthographies. Some simplified characters are very dissimilar to and unpredictably different from traditional characters and this often leads opponents not well-versed in the method of simplification to conclude that the overall process of character simplification is also arbitrary. In reality, the methods and rules of simplification are few, on the other hand, proponents of simplification often flaunt a few choice simplified characters as ingenious inventions, when in fact these have existed for hundreds of years as ancient variants. However, the Chinese government never officially dropped its goal of further simplification in the future, in August 2009, the PRC began collecting public comments for a modified list of simplified characters. The new Table of General Standard Chinese Characters consisting of 8,105 characters was promulgated by the State Council of the Peoples Republic of China on June 5,2013, cursive written text almost always includes character simplification. Simplified forms used in print have always existed, they date back to as early as the Qin dynasty, One of the earliest proponents of character simplification was Lubi Kui, who proposed in 1909 that simplified characters should be used in education. In the years following the May Fourth Movement in 1919, many anti-imperialist Chinese intellectuals sought ways to modernise China, Traditional culture and values such as Confucianism were challenged. Soon, people in the Movement started to cite the traditional Chinese writing system as an obstacle in modernising China and it was suggested that the Chinese writing system should be either simplified or completely abolished. Fu Sinian, a leader of the May Fourth Movement, called Chinese characters the writing of ox-demons, lu Xun, a renowned Chinese author in the 20th century, stated that, If Chinese characters are not destroyed, then China will die. Recent commentators have claimed that Chinese characters were blamed for the problems in China during that time
6.
Standard Chinese
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Its pronunciation is based on the Beijing dialect, its vocabulary on the Mandarin dialects, and its grammar is based on written vernacular Chinese. Like other varieties of Chinese, Standard Chinese is a language with topic-prominent organization. It has more initial consonants but fewer vowels, final consonants, Standard Chinese is an analytic language, though with many compound words. There exist two standardised forms of the language, namely Putonghua in Mainland China and Guoyu in Taiwan, aside from a number of differences in pronunciation and vocabulary, Putonghua is written using simplified Chinese characters, while Guoyu is written using traditional Chinese characters. There are many characters that are identical between the two systems, in English, the governments of China and Hong Kong use Putonghua, Putonghua Chinese, Mandarin Chinese, and Mandarin, while those of Taiwan, Singapore, and Malaysia, use Mandarin. The name Putonghua also has a long, albeit unofficial, history and it was used as early as 1906 in writings by Zhu Wenxiong to differentiate a modern, standard Chinese from classical Chinese and other varieties of Chinese. For some linguists of the early 20th century, the Putonghua, or common tongue/speech, was different from the Guoyu. The former was a prestige variety, while the latter was the legal standard. Based on common understandings of the time, the two were, in fact, different, Guoyu was understood as formal vernacular Chinese, which is close to classical Chinese. By contrast, Putonghua was called the speech of the modern man. The use of the term Putonghua by left-leaning intellectuals such as Qu Qiubai, prior to this, the government used both terms interchangeably. In Taiwan, Guoyu continues to be the term for Standard Chinese. The term Putonghua, on the contrary, implies nothing more than the notion of a lingua franca, Huayu, or language of the Chinese nation, originally simply meant Chinese language, and was used in overseas communities to contrast Chinese with foreign languages. Over time, the desire to standardise the variety of Chinese spoken in these communities led to the adoption of the name Huayu to refer to Mandarin and it also incorporates the notion that Mandarin is usually not the national or common language of the areas in which overseas Chinese live. The term Mandarin is a translation of Guānhuà, which referred to the lingua franca of the late Chinese empire, in English, Mandarin may refer to the standard language, the dialect group as a whole, or to historic forms such as the late Imperial lingua franca. The name Modern Standard Mandarin is sometimes used by linguists who wish to distinguish the current state of the language from other northern. Chinese has long had considerable variation, hence prestige dialects have always existed. Confucius, for example, used yǎyán rather than colloquial regional dialects, rime books, which were written since the Northern and Southern dynasties, may also have reflected one or more systems of standard pronunciation during those times
7.
Pinyin
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Pinyin, or Hànyǔ Pīnyīn, is the official romanization system for Standard Chinese in mainland China, Malaysia, Singapore, and Taiwan. It is often used to teach Standard Chinese, which is written using Chinese characters. The system includes four diacritics denoting tones, Pinyin without tone marks is used to spell Chinese names and words in languages written with the Latin alphabet, and also in certain computer input methods to enter Chinese characters. The pinyin system was developed in the 1950s by many linguists, including Zhou Youguang and it was published by the Chinese government in 1958 and revised several times. The International Organization for Standardization adopted pinyin as a standard in 1982. The system was adopted as the standard in Taiwan in 2009. The word Hànyǔ means the language of the Han people. In 1605, the Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci published Xizi Qiji in Beijing and this was the first book to use the Roman alphabet to write the Chinese language. Twenty years later, another Jesuit in China, Nicolas Trigault, neither book had much immediate impact on the way in which Chinese thought about their writing system, and the romanizations they described were intended more for Westerners than for the Chinese. One of the earliest Chinese thinkers to relate Western alphabets to Chinese was late Ming to early Qing Dynasty scholar-official, the first late Qing reformer to propose that China adopt a system of spelling was Song Shu. A student of the great scholars Yu Yue and Zhang Taiyan, Song had been to Japan and observed the effect of the kana syllabaries. This galvanized him into activity on a number of fronts, one of the most important being reform of the script, while Song did not himself actually create a system for spelling Sinitic languages, his discussion proved fertile and led to a proliferation of schemes for phonetic scripts. The Wade–Giles system was produced by Thomas Wade in 1859, and it was popular and used in English-language publications outside China until 1979. This Sin Wenz or New Writing was much more sophisticated than earlier alphabets. In 1940, several members attended a Border Region Sin Wenz Society convention. Mao Zedong and Zhu De, head of the army, both contributed their calligraphy for the masthead of the Sin Wenz Societys new journal. Outside the CCP, other prominent supporters included Sun Yat-sens son, Sun Fo, Cai Yuanpei, the countrys most prestigious educator, Tao Xingzhi, an educational reformer. Over thirty journals soon appeared written in Sin Wenz, plus large numbers of translations, biographies, some contemporary Chinese literature, and a spectrum of textbooks
8.
Hakka Chinese
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Hakka is not mutually intelligible with Yue, Wu, Southern Min, Mandarin or other branches of Chinese, and itself contains a few mutually unintellegible varieties. It is most closely related to Gan and is classified as a variety of Gan. There is also a possibility that the similarities are just a result of shared areal features, Taiwan, where Hakka is the native language of a significant minority of the islands residents, is a center for the study and preservation of the language. Pronunciation differences exist between the Taiwanese Hakka dialects and Mainland Chinas Hakka dialects, even in Taiwan, two local varieties of Hakka exist. The Meixian dialect of northeast Guangdong in China has been taken as the dialect by the Peoples Republic of China. The Guangdong Provincial Education Department created a romanization of Moiyen in 1960. The name of the Hakka people who are the predominant original native speakers of the variety literally means guest families or guest people, Hak 客 means guest, and ka 家 means family. Among themselves, Hakka people variously called their language Hak-ka-fa 客家話, Hak-fa, 客話, Tu-gong-dung-fa 土廣東話, literally Native Guangdong language, and Ngai-fa 我話, My/our language. The forebears of the Hakka came from present-day Central Plains provinces of Henan and Shaanxi, the presence of many archaic features occur in modern Hakka, including final consonants -p -t -k, as are found in other modern southern Chinese varieties, but which have been lost in Mandarin. Due to the migration of its speakers, Hakka may have influenced by other language areas through which the Hakka-speaking forebears migrated. For instance, common vocabulary is found in Hakka, Min, in recent times, many She people have become Hakka speakers. A regular pattern of change can generally be detected in Hakka, as in most Chinese varieties. Some examples, Characters such as 武 or 屋, are pronounced roughly mwio and uk in Early Middle Chinese, have an initial v phoneme in Hakka, being vu and vuk in Hakka respectively. Like in Mandarin, labiodentalisation process also changed mj- to a sound in Hakka before grave vowels. Middle Chinese initial phonemes /ɲ/ of the characters 人 and 日, among others, for comparison, in Mandarin, /ɲ/ became r-, while in Cantonese, it merged with initial /j/. The initial consonant phoneme exhibited by the character 話 is pronounced f or v in Hakka, the initial consonant of 學 hɔk usually corresponds with an h approximant in Hakka and a voiceless alveo-palatal fricative in Mandarin. Hakka has as many regional dialects as there are counties with Hakka speakers as the majority, some of these Hakka dialects are not mutually intelligible with each other. Surrounding Meixian are the counties of Pingyuan, Dabu, Jiaoling, Xingning, Wuhua, each is said to have its own special phonological points of interest
9.
Cantonese
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Cantonese, or Standard Cantonese, is a variety of Chinese spoken in the city of Guangzhou in southeastern China. It is the prestige variety of Yue, one of the major subdivisions of Chinese. In mainland China, it is the lingua franca of the province of Guangdong and some neighbouring areas such as Guangxi. In Hong Kong and Macau, Cantonese serves as one of their official languages and it is also spoken amongst overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia and throughout the Western World. When Cantonese and the closely related Yuehai dialects are classified together, Cantonese is viewed as vital part of the cultural identity for its native speakers across large swathes of southeastern China, Hong Kong and Macau. Although Cantonese shares some vocabulary with Mandarin, the two varieties are mutually unintelligible because of differences in pronunciation, grammar and lexicon, sentence structure, in particular the placement of verbs, sometimes differs between the two varieties. This results in the situation in which a Cantonese and a Mandarin text may look similar, in English, the term Cantonese is ambiguous. Cantonese proper is the variety native to the city of Canton and this narrow sense may be specified as Canton language or Guangzhou language in English. However, Cantonese may also refer to the branch of Cantonese that contains Cantonese proper as well as Taishanese and Gaoyang. In this article, Cantonese is used for Cantonese proper, historically, speakers called this variety Canton speech or Guangzhou speech, although this term is now seldom used outside mainland China. In Guangdong province, people call it provincial capital speech or plain speech. In Hong Kong and Macau, as well as among overseas Chinese communities, in mainland China, the term Guangdong speech is also increasingly being used among both native and non-native speakers. Due to its status as a prestige dialect among all the dialects of the Cantonese or Yue branch of Chinese varieties, the official languages of Hong Kong are Chinese and English, as defined in the Hong Kong Basic Law. The Chinese language has different varieties, of which Cantonese is one. Given the traditional predominance of Cantonese within Hong Kong, it is the de facto official spoken form of the Chinese language used in the Hong Kong Government and all courts and it is also used as the medium of instruction in schools, alongside English. A similar situation exists in neighboring Macau, where Chinese is an official language along with Portuguese. As in Hong Kong, Cantonese is the predominant spoken variety of Chinese used in life and is thus the official form of Chinese used in the government. The variant spoken in Hong Kong and Macau is known as Hong Kong Cantonese, Cantonese first developed around the port city of Guangzhou in the Pearl River Delta region of southeastern China
10.
Jyutping
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Jyutping is a romanisation system for Cantonese developed by the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong, an academic group, in 1993. Its formal name is The Linguistic Society of Hong Kong Cantonese Romanisation Scheme, the LSHK promotes the use of this romanisation system. The name Jyutping is a contraction consisting of the first Chinese characters of the terms Jyut6jyu5, only the finals m and ng can be used as standalone nasal syllables. ^ ^ ^ Referring to the pronunciation of these words. There are nine tones in six distinct tone contours in Cantonese, however, as three of the nine are entering tones, which only appear in syllables ending with p, t, and k, they do not have separate tone numbers in Jyutping. Jyutping and the Yale Romanisation of Cantonese represent Cantonese pronunciations with the letters in, The initials, b, p, m, f, d, t, n, l, g, k, ng, h, s, gw, kw. The vowel, aa, a, e, i, o, u, the coda, i, u, m, n, ng, p, t, k. But they differ in the following, The vowels eo and oe represent /ɵ/ and /œː/ respectively in Jyutping, the initial j represents /j/ in Jyutping whereas y is used instead in Yale. The initial z represents /ts/ in Jyutping whereas j is used instead in Yale, the initial c represents /tsʰ/ in Jyutping whereas ch is used instead in Yale. In Jyutping, if no consonant precedes the vowel yu, then the initial j is appended before the vowel, in Yale, the corresponding initial y is never appended before yu under any circumstances. Jyutping defines three finals not in Yale, eu /ɛːu/, em /ɛːm/, and ep /ɛːp/ and these three finals are used in colloquial Cantonese words, such as deu6, lem2, and gep6. To represent tones, only tone numbers are used in Jyutping whereas Yale traditionally uses tone marks together with the letter h. Jyutping and Cantonese Pinyin represent Cantonese pronunciations with the letters in, The initials, b, p, m, f, d, t, n, l, g, k, ng, h, s, gw, kw. The vowel, aa, a, e, i, o, u, the coda, i, u, m, n, ng, p, t, k. But they have differences, The vowel oe represents both /ɵ/ and /œː/ in Cantonese Pinyin whereas eo and oe represent /ɵ/ and /œː/ respectively in Jyutping. The vowel y represents /y/ in Cantonese Pinyin whereas both yu and i are used in Jyutping, the initial dz represents /ts/ in Cantonese Pinyin whereas z is used instead in Jyutping. The initial ts represents /tsʰ/ in Cantonese Pinyin whereas c is used instead in Jyutping. To represent tones, the numbers 1 to 9 are usually used in Cantonese Pinyin, however, only the numbers 1 to 6 are used in Jyutping
11.
Nightscape
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A nightscape or night view is the visible features of an area of landscape as viewed at night
12.
Victoria Peak
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Victoria Peak is a mountain in the western half of Hong Kong Island. It is also known as Mount Austin, and locally as The Peak, with an elevation of 552 m, it is the highest mountain on Hong Kong island, ranked 31 in terms of elevation in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. The summit is occupied by a radio telecommunications facility and is closed to the public, however, the surrounding area of public parks and high-value residential land is the area that is normally meant by the name The Peak. It is a major tourist attraction that offers views over Central, Victoria Harbour, Lamma Island, the sixth Governor of Hong Kong, Sir Richard MacDonnell had a summer residence built on the Peak circa 1868. Those that built houses named them whimsically, such as The Eyrie, and these original residents reached their homes by sedan chairs, which were carried up and down the steep slope of Victoria Peak. This limited development of the Peak until the opening of the Peak Tram funicular in 1888, the boost to accessibility caused by the opening of the Peak Tram created demand for residences on the Peak. Between 1904 and 1930, the Peak Reservation Ordinance designated the Peak as a residential area reserved for non-Chinese. They also reserved the Peak Tram for the use of passengers during peak periods. The Peak remains a residential area, although residency today is based on wealth. The Peak is home to species of birds, most prominently the black kite. With some seven million every year, the Peak is a major tourist attraction of Hong Kong. It offers spectacular views of the city and its waterfront, the viewing deck also has coin-operated telescopes that the visitors can use to enjoy the cityscape. The number of visitors led to the construction of two major leisure and shopping centres, the Peak Tower and the Peak Galleria, situated adjacent to each other. The Peak is also accessible by taxi and private car via the circuitous Peak Road, the nearest MTR station is Central. Victoria Peak Garden is located on the site of Mountain Lodge, the Governors old summer residence and it can be reached from Victoria Gap by walking up Mount Austin Road, a climb of about 150 metres. There are several restaurants on Victoria Peak, most of which are located in the two shopping centres, however, the Peak Lookout Restaurant, is housed in an older and more traditional building which was originally a spacious house for engineers working on the Peak Tramway. It was rebuilt in 1901 as an area for sedan chairs. In addition to being a major tourist attraction for Hong Kong, at the peak of The Peak, properties are more expensive than anywhere else in the world
13.
Harbor
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A harbor or harbour, or haven, is a body of water where ships, boats and barges seek shelter from stormy weather, or are stored for future use. Ports are often located in harbors, harbors can be natural or artificial. An artificial harbor can have deliberately constructed breakwaters, sea walls, or jettys, or they can be constructed by dredging, in contrast, a natural harbor is surrounded on several sides by prominences of land. Examples of natural harbors include Sydney Harbour, Australia and Trincomalee Harbour in Sri Lanka, artificial harbors are frequently built for use as ports. The oldest artificial harbor known is the Ancient Egyptian site at Wadi al-Jarf, on the Red Sea coast, the largest artificially created harbor is Jebel Ali in Dubai. The Ancient Carthaginians constructed fortified, artificial harbors called cothons, a natural harbor is a landform where a part of a body of water is protected and deep enough to furnish anchorage. Natural harbors have long been of great strategic naval and economic importance, having a protected harbor reduces or eliminates the need for breakwaters as it will result in calmer waves inside the harbor. For harbors near the North and South Poles, being ice-free is an important advantage, the worlds southmost harbor, located at Antarcticas Winter Quarters Bay, is potentially ice-free, depending on the summertime pack ice conditions. Although the worlds busiest port is a hotly contested title, in 2006 the worlds busiest harbor by cargo tonnage was the Port of Shanghai
14.
Hong Kong Island
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Hong Kong Island is an island in the southern part of Hong Kong. It has a population of 1,289,500 and its density is 16, 390/km². The island had a population of about 3,000 inhabitants scattered in a dozen fishing villages when it was occupied by the United Kingdom in the First Opium War, the Central area on the island is the historical, political and economic centre of Hong Kong. The northern coast of the forms the southern shore of the Victoria Harbour. The island is home to many of the most famous sights in Hong Kong, such as The Peak, Ocean Park, many historical sites, the mountain ranges across the island are also famous for hiking. The northern part of Hong Kong Island, together with Kowloon and Tsuen Wan New Town and their combined area is approximately 88.3 square kilometres and their combined population is approximately 3,156,500, reflecting a population density of 35, 700/km². The island is referred to locally as Hong Kong side or Island side. This style was applied to many locations but is now only heard in this form and Kowloon side. Hong Kong Island comprises the following suburbs/localities of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Island is not part of the Islands District, Hong Kong island became a colony of the British Empire when their forces defeated the Chinese in the First Opium War. The island was populated by only a few thousand people when British empire colonized it, the Second World War was a dark period for Hong Kong. In the 1930s, the British anticipated a Japanese attack on Hong Kong, as Wong Nai Chung Gap was a strategic important place of defence, large-scale defensive works were constructed there, including anti-aircraft batteries, howitzers, and machine gun nests. The Battle of Hong Kong began on 8 December 1941, British, Canadian, Indian armies and the Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Forces resisted the Japanese invasion commanded by Sakai Takashi, which began eight hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor. However, the Japanese were able to control of the Hong Kong skies on the first day of attack. The defenders retreated from the Gin Drinkers Line and consequently from Kowloon under heavy aerial bombardment, on 18 December, the Japanese had conquered North Point, reaching Wong Nai Chung Gap on the next day. However, Allied forces there were defeated by the Japanese on 23 December. As Wan Chai Gap had also fallen that day, the British had no choice. Hong Kong was surrendered on 25 December 1941, thereafter often called Black Christmas by locals. The Governor of Hong Kong, Mark Young, surrendered in person at the temporary Japanese headquarters, on the floor of the Peninsula Hotel
15.
Kowloon
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Kowloon is a transliteration of 九龍. Kowloon is an area in Hong Kong comprising the Kowloon Peninsula. It had a population of 2,019,533 and a density of 43. The peninsulas area is approximately 47 km2, the part of Kowloon south of Boundary Street, together with Stonecutters Island, was ceded by Qing China to the United Kingdom under the Convention of Peking of 1860. For many years the area remained undeveloped, used by the British mainly for tiger-hunting expeditions. The part of Kowloon north of Boundary Street was leased by the British as part of the New Territories under the 1898 Second Convention of Peking for 99 years. Within New Kowloon is Kowloon City, which refers to an area of Hong Kong where the Kowloon Walled City used to be located, the Kowloon Walled City itself was demolished in 1993. The same area was called Guanfuchang during the Song dynasty, statutorily, Kowloon is used to refer to the area south of Boundary Street and the Stonecutters Island. New Kowloon has also remained part of the New Territories, in modern-day culture, New Kowloon is not regarded as part of the New Territories but as an integral part of the Kowloon urban area whether north or south of Boundary Street. As a result, compared to Hong Kong Island, Kowloon has a lower skyline. The area of reclaimed land known as West Kowloon was once home to a dockyard for the Royal Navy, a 13-foot high stone wall was built in 1847 around Kowloon. The 1911 census recorded a population of 7,306, with most being Hakka, the invasion of China by Japan in 1937 caused the population of Kowloon to explode. Between 1937 and 1939,750,000 refugees arrived in Kowloon and nearby areas, as of 2011,2,108,419 people lived in Kowloon. 94. 2% of Kowloons residents are of Cantonese ethnicity, the largest ethnic minority groups are Indonesians, Filipinos, Indians, Nepalese, and Whites. 86% of Kowloons residents use Cantonese as their language, while 2. 3% use English and 1. 2% use Mandarin. Kowloon West includes Yau Tsim Mong, Sham Shui Po and Kowloon City
16.
Hong Kong
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Hong Kong, officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the Peoples Republic of China, is an autonomous territory on the Pearl River Delta of East Asia. Macau lies across the delta to the west, and the Chinese province of Guangdong borders the territory to the north. With a total area of 1,106 square kilometres. Hong Kong was later occupied by Japan during World War II until British control resumed in 1945, under the principle of one country, two systems, Hong Kong maintains a separate political and economic system from China. Except in military defence and foreign affairs, Hong Kong maintains its independent executive, legislative, in addition, Hong Kong develops relations directly with foreign states and international organisations in a broad range of appropriate fields. Hong Kong is one of the worlds most significant financial centres, with the highest Financial Development Index score and consistently ranks as the worlds most competitive and freest economic entity. As the worlds 8th largest trading entity, its legal tender, Hong Kongs tertiary sector dominated economy is characterised by simple taxation with a competitive level of corporate tax and supported by its independent judiciary system. However, while Hong Kong has one of the highest per capita incomes in the world and it has a very high Human Development Index ranking and the worlds longest life expectancy. Over 90% of the population use of well-developed public transportation. Seasonal air pollution with origins from neighbouring areas of Mainland China. Hong Kong was officially recorded in the 1842 Treaty of Nanking to encompass the entirety of the island, before 1842, the name referred to a small inlet—now Aberdeen Harbour, literally means Little Hong Kong)—between Aberdeen Island and the southern coast of Hong Kong Island. Aberdeen was a point of contact between British sailors and local fishermen. Detailed and accurate romanisation systems for Cantonese were available and in use at the time, fragrance may refer to the sweet taste of the harbours fresh water estuarine influx of the Pearl River or to the incense from factories lining the coast of northern Kowloon. The incense was stored near Aberdeen Harbour for export before Hong Kong developed Victoria Harbour, the name had often been written as the single word Hongkong until the government adopted the current form in 1926. Nevertheless, a number of century-old institutions still retain the form, such as the Hongkong Post, Hongkong Electric. As of 1997, its name is the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the Peoples Republic of China. This is the title as mentioned in the Hong Kong Basic Law. Hong Kong has carried many nicknames, the most famous among those is the Pearl of the Orient, which reflected the impressive nightscape of the citys light decorations on the skyscrapers along both sides of the Victoria Harbour
17.
South China Sea
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The South China Sea is a marginal sea that is part of the Pacific Ocean, encompassing an area from the Karimata and Malacca Straits to the Strait of Taiwan of around 3,500,000 square kilometres. The areas importance largely results from one-third of the worlds shipping sailing through its waters, the sea and its mostly uninhabited islands are subject to competing claims of sovereignty by several countries. These claims are reflected in the variety of names used for the islands. South China Sea is the dominant term used in English for the sea, and this name is a result of early European interest in the sea as a route from Europe and South Asia to the trading opportunities of China. In the sixteenth century Portuguese sailors called it the China Sea, the International Hydrographic Organization refers to the sea as South China Sea. The Classic of Poetry, Zuo Zhuan, and Guoyu classics of the Spring and Autumn period also referred to the sea, Nan Hai, the South Sea, was one of the Four Seas of Chinese literature. There are three other seas, one for each of the four cardinal directions, during the Eastern Han dynasty, Chinas rulers called the Sea Zhang Hai. Fei Hai became popular during the Southern and Northern Dynasties period, usage of the current Chinese name, Nan Hai, became gradually widespread during the Qing Dynasty. In Southeast Asia it was called the Champa Sea or Sea of Cham. The majority of the sea came under Japanese naval control during World War II following the acquisition of many surrounding South East Asian territories in 1941. Japan calls the sea Minami Shina Kai South China Sea and this was written 南支那海 until 2004, when the Japanese Foreign Ministry and other departments switched the spelling 南シナ海, which has become the standard usage in Japan. In China, it is called the South Sea, 南海 Nánhǎi, in Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines, it was long called the South China Sea, with the part within Philippine territorial waters often called the Luzon Sea, Dagat Luzon, by the Philippines. However, following an escalation of the Spratly Islands dispute in 2011, a PAGASA spokesperson said that the sea to the east of the Philippines will continue to be called the Philippine Sea. In September 2012, Philippine President Benigno Aquino III signed Administrative Order No, states and territories with borders on the sea include, the Peoples Republic of China, the Republic of China, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia, Singapore, and Vietnam. Major rivers that flow into the South China Sea include the Pearl, Min, Jiulong, Red, Mekong, Rajang, Pahang, Pampanga, the International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the South China Sea as follows, On the South. From Fuki Kaku the North point of Formosa to Kiushan Tao on to the South point of Haitan Tao, the Mainland, the Southern limit of the Gulf of Thailand and the East coast of the Malay Peninsula. The sea lies above a drowned continental shelf, during recent ice ages global sea level was hundreds of metres lower, the South China Sea opened around 45 million years ago when the Dangerous Ground rifted away from southern China. Extension culminated in seafloor spreading around 30 million years ago, a process that propagated to the SW resulting in the V-shaped basin we see today, extension ceased around 17 million years ago
18.
Land reclamation in Hong Kong
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The reclamation of land from the ocean has long been used in mountainous Hong Kong to expand the limited supply of usable land with a total of around 60 square kilometres of land created by 1996. The first reclamations can be traced back to the early Western Han Dynasty, major land reclamation projects have been conducted since the mid-19th century. One of the earliest and best-known modern projects was the Praya Reclamation Scheme and it was one of the most ambitious projects ever undertaken during the Colonial Hong Kong era. In addition, as the city expands, new towns in different decades were mostly built on reclaimed land, such as Tuen Mun, Tai Po, Sha Tin, Ma On Shan, West Kowloon, Kwun Tong and Tseung Kwan O. Much reclamation has taken place in locations on the waterfront on both sides of Victoria Harbour. Hong Kong legislators passed the Protection of the Harbour Ordinance in 1996 in an effort to safeguard the increasingly threatened Victoria Harbour against encroaching land development
19.
HMS Tamar (1863)
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HMS Tamar was a Royal Navy troopship built by the Samuda Brothers at Cubitt Town, London, and launched in Britain in 1863. She served as a ship from 1897 to 1941. The 1863 incarnation of HMS Tamar was the fourth to bear that name, which is derived from the River Tamar, in Cornwall, and the ships crest is based on its coat of arms. Built in Cubitt Town in East London, she was launched in June 1863, Tamar was dual-powered with masts and a steam engine, giving a speed of 12 knots. She originally had two funnels, but she was re-equipped with a more advanced boiler and reduced to one funnel, in 1874, she formed part of the Naval Brigade that helped to defeat the Ashanti in West Africa, during the Ashanti War. Tamar took part in the bombardment of Alexandria in 1882, in 1879, The British Medical Journal reported a group of sailors aboard the Tamar were poisoned by a bad pigeon pie which spawned an Admiralty investigation. In 1897 Tamar was hulked as a ship and relieved HMS Victor Emmanuel as the Hong Kong receiving ship. She was used as a ship until replaced by the shore station. The Tamar had been towed out to a buoy on 8 December during the Battle of Hong Kong during World War II, amidst a curfew of darkness and bombardment by the Japanese forces, the orders came at 2100 hours on 11 December to scuttle her. She was scuttled at the buoy on 12 December 1941 once it was clear that the advance could not be arrested, as the ships superstructure became airlocked, the ship refused to sink for some time, until the Royal Artillery was called in to administer the coup de grâce. A mast from this ship is now erected outside Murray House in Stanley, in late 2014, during dredging work for the Central–Wan Chai Bypass, the remains of what strongly appears to be HMS Tamar were discovered at the location where she is believed to have been scuttled. Ships of the Royal Navy, The Complete Record of all Fighting Ships of the Royal Navy
20.
Zheng He
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Zheng He, formerly romanized as Cheng Ho, was a Hui Chinese mariner, explorer, diplomat, and fleet admiral during Chinas early Ming dynasty. Born Ma He, Zheng commanded expeditionary voyages to Southeast Asia, South Asia, Western Asia and his larger ships stretched 120 meters in length. These carried hundreds of sailors on four tiers of decks, as a favorite of the Yongle Emperor, whose usurpation he assisted, Zheng He rose to the top of the imperial hierarchy and served as commander of the southern capital Nanjing. A trilingual stele left by the navigator was discovered on the island of Sri Lanka shortly thereafter, Zheng He was the second son of a family from Kunyang, Yunnan. He was originally born with the name Ma He and he had four sisters and one older brother. Zheng He was born into a Muslim family, however, his religious beliefs became all-embracing and eclectic in his adulthood. He was a great-great-great-grandson of Sayyid Ajjal Shams al-Din Omar, a Persian who served in the administration of the Mongol Empire and was the governor of Yunnan during the early Yuan dynasty and his great-grandfather was named Bayan and may have been stationed at a Mongol garrison in Yunnan. His grandfather carried the title hajji and his father had the surname Ma and the title hajji. The title suggests that they had made the pilgrimage to Mecca and it also suggests that Zheng He may have had Mongol and Arab ancestry and that he could speak Arabic. In the autumn of 1381, a Ming army invaded and conquered Yunnan, in 1381, Ma Hajji died in the fighting between the Ming armies and Mongol forces. Dreyer states that Zheng Hes father died at age 39 while resisting the Ming conquest, Levathes states Zheng Hes father died at age 37, but it is unclear if he was helping the Mongol army or just caught in the onslaught of battle. Wenming, the oldest son, buried their father outside of Kunming, in his capacity as Admiral, Zheng He had an epitaph engraved in honor of his father, composed by the Minister of Rites Li Zhigang on the Duanwu Festival of the 3rd year in the Yongle era. Zheng He was captured by the Ming armies at Yunnan in 1381, General Fu Youde saw Zheng He on a road and approached him in order to inquire about the location of the Mongol pretender. Zheng He responded defiantly by saying that the Mongol pretender had jumped into a lake, afterwards, the general took him prisoner. The young Zheng He was soon castrated before being placed in servitude of the Prince of Yan, however, Levathes has stated that he was castrated in 1385. He was sent to serve in the household of Zhu Di, the Prince of Yan and he was 10 years old when he entered into the service of the Prince of Yan. Zhu Di was eleven years older than Zheng He, since 1380, the prince had been governing Beiping, which was located near the northern frontier where the hostile Mongol tribes were situated. Zheng He would spend his life as a soldier on the northern frontier
21.
Wubei Zhi
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Wubei Zhi, also commonly known by its Japanese translated name Bubishi, is the most comprehensive military book in Chinese history. It was edited by Mao Yuanyi, an officer of waterborne troops in the Ming Dynasty, Wubei Zhi contains 240 volumes,10405 pages, and more than 200,000 Chinese characters, which makes it the longest book in Chinese history regarding military affairs. Wubei Zhi consists of five sections, Bing Jue Ping, Zhan Lue Kao, Zhen Lian Zhi, Jun Zi Sheng, and Zhan Du Zai. Zhan Lue Kao This section comprises 31 chapters, and describes more than 600 specific examples of battle took place between the Eastern Zhou Dynasty and the Yuan Dynasty. Among those are Battle of Maling, Battle of Red Cliffs, included into this section is the so-called Mao Kun map, the unique surviving map representing the Pacific and Indian Ocean shipping routes used by the fleets of Zheng He. Being known as an encyclopedia in ancient China, Wubei Zhi is one of the most influential works in Chinese history on warfare. Huolongjing A discussions of the Okinawan Bubishi and its significance to karate Ma, Huan, Mills, ying-yai Sheng-lan, The Overall Survey of the Oceans Shores 1433, London, Hakluyt Society
22.
East India Company
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The company also ruled the beginnings of the British Empire in India. The company received a Royal Charter from Queen Elizabeth I on 31 December 1600, wealthy merchants and aristocrats owned the Companys shares. Initially the government owned no shares and had only indirect control, during its first century of operation the focus of the Company was trade, not the building of an empire in India. The company eventually came to rule large areas of India with its own armies, exercising military power. Despite frequent government intervention, the company had recurring problems with its finances, the official government machinery of British India had assumed its governmental functions and absorbed its armies. Soon after the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588, London merchants presented a petition to Queen Elizabeth I for permission to sail to the Indian Ocean, one of them, Edward Bonventure, then sailed around Cape Comorin to the Malay Peninsula and returned to England in 1594. In 1596, three ships sailed east, however, these were all lost at sea. Two days later, on 24 September, the Adventurers reconvened and resolved to apply to the Queen for support of the project, the Adventurers convened again a year later. For a period of fifteen years the charter awarded the newly formed company a monopoly on trade with all countries east of the Cape of Good Hope and west of the Straits of Magellan. Anybody who traded in breach of the charter without a licence from the Company was liable to forfeiture of their ships and cargo, the governance of the company was in the hands of one governor and 24 directors or committees, who made up the Court of Directors. They, in turn, reported to the Court of Proprietors, ten committees reported to the Court of Directors. According to tradition, business was transacted at the Nags Head Inn, opposite St Botolphs church in Bishopsgate. Sir James Lancaster commanded the first East India Company voyage in 1601, in March 1604 Sir Henry Middleton commanded the second voyage. Early in 1608 Alexander Sharpeigh was appointed captain of the Companys Ascension, thereafter two ships, Ascension and Union sailed from Woolwich on 14 March 1607–8. Initially, the company struggled in the trade because of the competition from the already well-established Dutch East India Company. The company opened a factory in Bantam on the first voyage, the factory in Bantam was closed in 1683. During this time belonging to the company arriving in India docked at Surat. In the next two years, the company established its first factory in south India in the town of Machilipatnam on the Coromandel Coast of the Bay of Bengal
23.
Indian Navy
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The Indian Navy is the naval branch of the Indian Armed Forces. The President of India serves as Supreme Commander of the Indian Navy, the Chief of Naval Staff, usually a four-star officer in the rank of Admiral, commands the navy. The Indian Navy is the fifth largest in the world and it played an important role in Indias victory in the 1971 Indo-Pakistani War. The Indian Navy can trace its lineage back to the East India Companys Marine which was founded in 1612 to protect British merchant shipping in the region. In 1793 the East India Company established its rule over eastern part of the Indian subcontinent i. e. Bengal, in 1858, East India Company rule gave way to the British Raj which lasted until India became independent in 1947. When India became a republic in 1950, the Royal Indian Navy as it had been named since 1934 was renamed to Indian Navy, the 17th-century Maratha emperor Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj is considered as the Father of the Indian Navy. India has a history dating back 5,600 years. The first tidal dock is estimated to have built at Lothal around 2300 BC during the Indus Valley Civilisation. The Rig Veda written around 1500 BC, credits Varuna with knowledge of the routes and describes naval expeditions. There is reference to the wings of a vessel called Plava. A compass, the Matsya Yantra, was used for navigation in the fourth and fifth century AD, the earliest known reference to an organisation devoted to ships in ancient India is to the Mauryan Empire from the fourth century BCE. Emperor Chandragupta Mauryas Prime Minister Kautilyas Arthashastra devotes a chapter on the state department of waterways under navadhyaksha. The term, nava dvipantaragamanam appears in book in addition to appearing in the Sanskrit text, Baudhayana Dharmasastra as the interpretation of the term. Sea lanes between India and neighbouring lands were the form of trade for many centuries, and are responsible for the widespread influence of Indian Culture on other societies. Powerful navies included those of the Chola dynasty, Maurya Empire, Satavahana, Gupta Empire, Pala, Pandya, Vijayanagara Empire, Kalinga, Mughal, the Palas and the Chola]s excelled in foreign trade and maritime activity, extending their influence overseas to China and Southeast Asia. The Maratha naval power dominated the scene in India for three centuries. During the 17th and 18th centuries, the Maratha and Kerala fleets were expanded, the Pal was a three masted fighter with guns peeping on the broadsides. Kanhoji Angre and Kunjali Marakkar, the Naval chief of Saamoothiri, were two notable naval chiefs of the period
24.
Water polo
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Water polo is a competitive team sport played in the water between two teams. The game consists of four quarters, in which the two attempt to score goals by throwing the ball into their opponents goal. The team with the most goals at the end of the game wins the match, each team made up of six field players and one goalkeeper, with typically six additional players available for substitution throughout the match. Except for the goalkeeper, players participate in offensive and defensive roles. Water polo is played in an all-deep pool seven feet deep. The game is thought to have originated in Scotland in the late 19th century as a sort of water rugby, William Wilson is thought to have developed the game during a similar period. Mens water polo was among the first team sports introduced at the modern Olympic games in 1900, Water polo is now popular in many countries around the world, notably Europe, the United States, Canada and Australia. The present-day game involves teams of seven players, with a polo ball similar in size to a soccer ball. One of the earliest recorded viewings of water polo was conducted at the 4th Open Air Fete of the London Swimming Club, held at the Crystal Palace, another antecedent of the modern game of Water Polo was a game of water ‘hand-ball’ played at Bournemouth on 13 July 1876. This was a game between 12 members of the Premier Rowing Club, with goals being marked by four flags placed in the water near to the midpoint of Bournemouth Pier. The game started at 6,00 pm in the evening and lasted for 15 minutes watched by a large crowd, the rules of water polo were originally developed in the late nineteenth century in Great Britain by William Wilson. Wilson is believed to have been the First Baths Master of the Arlington Baths Club in Glasgow, the first games of aquatic football were played at the Arlington in the late 1800s, with a ball constructed of India rubber. This water rugby came to be called water polo based on the English pronunciation of the Balti word for ball, early play allowed brute strength, wrestling and holding opposing players underwater to recover the ball. Players held underwater for lengthy periods usually surrendered possession, the goalie stood outside the playing area and defended the goal by jumping in on any opponent attempting to score by placing the ball on the deck. The rules of water cover the play, procedure, equipment. These rules are similar throughout the world, although variations to the rules do occur regionally. There are seven players in the water from each team at one time, there are six players that play out and one goalkeeper. Unlike most common sports, there is little positional play
25.
Taiping Rebellion
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The war was mostly fought in the provinces of Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, Jiangxi and Hubei, but over 14 years of war the Taiping Army had marched through every province of China proper except Gansu. Hostilities began on January 1,1851, when the Qing Green Standard Army launched an attack against the God Worshipping Society at the town of Jintian, Guangxi. Hong declared himself the Heavenly King of the Heavenly Kingdom of Peace, the Taipings began marching north in September 1851 to escape Qing forces closing in on them. On March 19,1853, the Taipings captured the city of Nanjing and Hong declared it the Heavenly Capital of his kingdom. For a decade the Taiping occupied and fought much of the mid and lower Yangzi valley. Qing imperial troops proved to be ineffective in halting Taiping advances. In Hunan Province a local irregular army called the Xiang Army or Hunan Army, under the leadership of Zeng Guofan. Zengs Xiang Army proved effective in turning back the Taiping advance in the western theater of the war. In 1856 the Taiping were weakened after infighting following a coup led by the East King, Yang Xiuqing. During this time the Xiang Army managed to retake much of Hubei. While Taiping forces were preoccupied in Jiangsu, Zengs forces moved down the Yangzi River, in May 1862 the Xiang Army began directly besieging Nanjing and managed to hold firm despite numerous attempts by the numerically superior Taiping Army to dislodge them. Hong died on June 1,1864, and Nanjing fell shortly after, the terms used for the movement often reflect the viewpoint of the writer. The Qing referred to the Taiping as Yue Bandits in official sources, in the 19th century Western observers, depending on their ideological position, referred to the Taiping as the revolutionaries, insurgents or rebels. The conflict in general has been called the Taiping Rebellion by many Western historians and they argue, instead, that the conflict should be called a civil war. The government, led by ethnic Manchus, was seen by many Han Chinese as ineffective, anti-Manchu sentiments were strongest in southern China among the Hakka community, a Han Chinese subgroup. In 1837 Hong Xiuquan, a Hakka from a mountain village, once again failed the imperial examination. He returned home, fell sick and was bedridden for several days and it was his duty to spread his message and overthrow the Qing dynasty. One of Hongs associates, Yang Xiuqing--a firewood merchant from Guangxi--also declared that he heard the voice of God
26.
Kowloon City
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Kowloon City is an area in Kowloon, Hong Kong. It is named after the Kowloon Walled City, and is part of Kowloon City District. As early as in the Qin Dynasty, Kowloon City was famous for its pearl production, during the Song Dynasty, Kowloon City was a part of Kwun Fu Cheung, which was a part of salt yard governed by Chinese officials. Part of the district was the location of the original Kowloon Walled City and this is now Kowloon Walled City Park. The former Kai Tak International Airport was also located in the district, in 1982, Hong Kong was divided into 18 administrative districts, and Kowloon City and its neighbouring areas, such as Hung Hom, now belong to the Kowloon City District. Prior to 1998, a building height restriction was imposed in Kowloon City to minimize the hazards of air traffic commuting through the Kai Tak Airport. The closure of Kai Tak as a result of the opening of the new Hong Kong International Airport lifted the height restriction, the district is well known for its wide range of cuisine. Other than the traditional Hong Kong-style restaurants that offer local dishes, there are restaurants that offer Southeast Asian dishes like Thai, Vietnamese. Many Thai grocery stores can be found throughout this place, too, due to the prevalence of Thai restaurants and stores as well as the population of Thai-speaking ethnic Chinese, Kowloon City is also known as Hong Kongs Little Thailand. Kowloon City is not only a food paradise for authentic main dishes of many cultures, there are many famous and highly rated bakeries and dessert shops, e. g. the Tony Wong Patisserie and Smile Yogurt & Dessert Bar
27.
Junk (ship)
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A junk is an ancient Chinese sailing ship design that is still in use today. Junks were used as seagoing vessels as early as the 2nd century AD and they evolved in the later dynasties, and were used throughout Asia for extensive ocean voyages. They were found, and in numbers are still found, throughout South-East Asia and India. Found more broadly today is a number of modern recreational junk-rigged sailboats. The term junk may be used to cover many kinds of boat—ocean-going, cargo-carrying, pleasure boats and they vary greatly in size and there are significant regional variations in the type of rig, however they all employ fully battened sails. The term ultimately stems from the Chinese chuán, also based on and pronounced as in the Min Nan variant of Chinese, or zhōu and it entered the English language in the 17th century through the Portuguese junco from the Malay jong or Javanese djong. The modern Standard Chinese word for a wooden cargo vessel is cáo. That said, there are divergent views on this, Pierre-Yves Manguin, amongst others, most scholars consider it was the early Song Dynasty before the fully developed hull forms and rigs were in regular use in offshore trade. The fully developed junk design exhibited innovative, though very little further developed sail plans. There is no evidence that these were adopted in Western shipbuilding by direct emulation, in this case, as in so many others, parallel invention, often in response to quite different hydrodynamic, aerodynamic or technical stimuli, is the historically better evidenced explanation. The structure and flexibility of junk sails make the junk fast, the sails of a junk can be moved inward toward the long axis of the ship. In theory this closeness of what is called sheeting allowed the junk to sail into the wind, in practice, evidenced both by traditional sailing routes and seasons and textual evidence junks neither could nor sail well into the wind. In the typical junk these were both ill-adapted to windward work because, put simply, junks were neither intended to nor designed to work to windward. The sails include several members, called battens, which in principle could provide shape and strength but in practice, because of the available materials and technology. The sails can also be easily reefed to accommodate various wind strengths, the battens also make the sails more resistant than other sails to large tears, as a tear is typically limited to a single panel between battens. In South China the sails have a curved roach especially towards the head, the main drawback to the junk sail is its high weight caused by the 6 to 15 heavy full length battens. With high weight aloft and no keel, junks were known to capsize when lightly laden due to their high centre of gravity. The top batten is heavier and similar to a gaff, in principle junk sails have much in common with the most aerodynamically efficient sails used today in windsurfers or catamarans
28.
Second Opium War
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The terms Second War and Arrow War are both used in literature. The Arrow War refers to the name of a vessel which became the point of the conflict. The war followed on from the First Opium War, the failure of the treaty to satisfy British goals of improved trade and diplomatic relations led to the Second Opium War. In China, the war is considered to be the beginning of modern Chinese history, the 1850s saw the rapid growth of Western imperialism. Some of the goals of the western powers were the expansion of their overseas markets. The French Treaty of Huangpu and the American Wangxia Treaty both contained clauses allowing renegotiation of the treaties after 12 years of being in effect. In an effort to expand their privileges in China, Britain demanded the Qing authorities renegotiate the Treaty of Nanking, citing their most favoured nation status. In October 1856, Chinese marines in Canton seized a ship called the Arrow on suspicion of piracy. The Arrow had previously used by pirates, captured by the Chinese government. It was then registered as a British ship and still flew the British flag at the time of its detainment and its captain, Thomas Kennedy, who was aboard a nearby vessel at the time, reported seeing Chinese marines pull the British flag down from the ship. Ye released nine of the members, but refused to release the last three. On 23 October the British destroyed four barrier forts, on 25 October a demand was made for the British to be allowed to enter the city. Next day the British started to bombard the city, firing one shot every 10 minutes, Ye Mingchen issued a bounty on every British head taken. On 29 October a hole was blasted in the city walls and troops entered, with a flag of the United States of America being planted by James Keenan on the walls, losses were 3 killed and 12 wounded. Negotiations failed and the city was bombarded, on 6 November 23 war junks attacked and were destroyed. There were pauses for talks, with the British bombarding at intervals, fires were caused, then on 5 January 1857, the British government lost a Parliamentary vote regarding the Arrow incident and what had taken place at Canton to the end of the year on 3 March 1857. Then there was an election in April 1857 which increased the government majority. In April, the government asked the United States of America and Russia if they were interested in alliances, in May 1857, the Indian Mutiny became serious
29.
Queen Victoria
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Victoria was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death. From 1 May 1876, she adopted the title of Empress of India. Victoria was the daughter of Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn, both the Duke of Kent and King George III died in 1820, and Victoria was raised under close supervision by her German-born mother Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. She inherited the throne aged 18, after her fathers three brothers had all died, leaving no surviving legitimate children. The United Kingdom was already a constitutional monarchy, in which the sovereign held relatively little direct political power. Privately, Victoria attempted to influence government policy and ministerial appointments, publicly, Victoria married her first cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, in 1840. Their nine children married into royal and noble families across the continent, tying them together, after Alberts death in 1861, Victoria plunged into deep mourning and avoided public appearances. As a result of her seclusion, republicanism temporarily gained strength and her Golden and Diamond Jubilees were times of public celebration. Her reign of 63 years and seven months is known as the Victorian era and it was a period of industrial, cultural, political, scientific, and military change within the United Kingdom, and was marked by a great expansion of the British Empire. She was the last British monarch of the House of Hanover and her son and successor, Edward VII, belonged to the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, the line of his father. Victorias father was Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn, until 1817, Edwards niece, Princess Charlotte of Wales, was the only legitimate grandchild of George III. Her death in 1817 precipitated a crisis that brought pressure on the Duke of Kent. In 1818 he married Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, a widowed German princess with two children—Carl and Feodora —by her first marriage to the Prince of Leiningen and her brother Leopold was Princess Charlottes widower. The Duke and Duchess of Kents only child, Victoria, was born at 4.15 a. m. on 24 May 1819 at Kensington Palace in London. Victoria was christened privately by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Charles Manners-Sutton, on 24 June 1819 in the Cupola Room at Kensington Palace and she was baptised Alexandrina, after one of her godparents, Emperor Alexander I of Russia, and Victoria, after her mother. Additional names proposed by her parents—Georgina, Charlotte, and Augusta—were dropped on the instructions of the Dukes eldest brother, George, the Duke of Clarence and the Duke of Kent married on the same day in 1818, but both of Clarences daughters died as infants. Victorias father died in January 1820, when Victoria was less than a year old, a week later her grandfather died and was succeeded by his eldest son, George IV. The Duke of York died in 1827, when George IV died in 1830, he was succeeded by his next surviving brother, William IV, and Victoria became heir presumptive
30.
RMS Queen Elizabeth
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RMS Queen Elizabeth was an ocean liner operated by the Cunard Line. With her sister ship Queen Mary she provided luxury liner service between Southampton in the United Kingdom and New York City in the United States, via Cherbourg in France. She was also contracted for over 20 years to carry the Royal Mail thus enabling her to carry the prestigious Royal Mail Ship designation, as the second half of the two ships weekly express service. With a design that improved upon that of Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth was a larger ship. She also has the distinction of being the largest-ever riveted ship by gross tonnage and she first entered service in February 1940 as a troopship in World War II, and it was not until October 1946 that she served in her intended role as an ocean liner. With the decline in the popularity of the route, both ships were replaced by the smaller, more economical Queen Elizabeth 2 in 1969. Queen Mary was retired from service on 9 December 1967, and was sold to the city of Long Beach, California, Queen Elizabeth was sold to a succession of buyers, most of whom had adventurous and unsuccessful plans for her. Finally she was sold to a Hong Kong businessman, Tung Chao Yung, in 1972, while undergoing refurbishment in Hong Kong harbour, she caught fire under mysterious circumstances and was capsized by the water used to fight the fire. In 1973, her wreck was deemed an obstruction, and she was scrapped where she lay. On the day RMS Queen Mary sailed on her voyage, Cunards chairman, Sir Percy Bates. The official contract between Cunard and government financiers was signed on 6 October 1936 and she was to be eleven feet longer and of 4,000 tons greater displacement than her older sister ship, Mary. Queen Elizabeth was built on four at John Brown & Company in Clydebank. During her construction she was commonly known by her shipyard number. The interiors were designed by a team of artists headed by the architect George Grey Wornum, Cunards plan was for the ship to be launched in September 1938, with fitting out intended to be complete for the ship to enter service in the spring of 1940. The Queen herself performed the ceremony on 27 September 1938. It was announced that on 23 August 1939 the King and Queen were to visit the ship and tour the engine room, due to the outbreak of World War II, these two events were postponed and Cunards plans were shattered. Queen Elizabeth sat at the dock at the shipyard in her Cunard colours until 2 November 1939. On 29 December her engines were tested for the first time, running from 0900 to 1600 with the propellers disconnected to monitor her oil and steam operating temperatures and pressures
31.
Nitrogen
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Nitrogen is a chemical element with symbol N and atomic number 7. It was first discovered and isolated by Scottish physician Daniel Rutherford in 1772, although Carl Wilhelm Scheele and Henry Cavendish had independently done so at about the same time, Rutherford is generally accorded the credit because his work was published first. Nitrogen is the lightest member of group 15 of the periodic table, the name comes from the Greek πνίγειν to choke, directly referencing nitrogens asphyxiating properties. It is an element in the universe, estimated at about seventh in total abundance in the Milky Way. At standard temperature and pressure, two atoms of the element bind to form dinitrogen, a colourless and odorless diatomic gas with the formula N2, dinitrogen forms about 78% of Earths atmosphere, making it the most abundant uncombined element. Nitrogen occurs in all organisms, primarily in amino acids, in the nucleic acids, the human body contains about 3% nitrogen by mass, the fourth most abundant element in the body after oxygen, carbon, and hydrogen. The nitrogen cycle describes movement of the element from the air, into the biosphere and organic compounds, many industrially important compounds, such as ammonia, nitric acid, organic nitrates, and cyanides, contain nitrogen. The extremely strong bond in elemental nitrogen, the second strongest bond in any diatomic molecule. Synthetically produced ammonia and nitrates are key industrial fertilisers, and fertiliser nitrates are key pollutants in the eutrophication of water systems. Apart from its use in fertilisers and energy-stores, nitrogen is a constituent of organic compounds as diverse as Kevlar used in high-strength fabric, Nitrogen is a constituent of every major pharmacological drug class, including antibiotics. Many notable nitrogen-containing drugs, such as the caffeine and morphine or the synthetic amphetamines. Nitrogen compounds have a long history, ammonium chloride having been known to Herodotus. They were well known by the Middle Ages, alchemists knew nitric acid as aqua fortis, as well as other nitrogen compounds such as ammonium salts and nitrate salts. The mixture of nitric and hydrochloric acids was known as aqua regia, celebrated for its ability to dissolve gold, the discovery of nitrogen is attributed to the Scottish physician Daniel Rutherford in 1772, who called it noxious air. Though he did not recognise it as a different chemical substance, he clearly distinguished it from Joseph Blacks fixed air. The fact that there was a component of air that does not support combustion was clear to Rutherford, Nitrogen was also studied at about the same time by Carl Wilhelm Scheele, Henry Cavendish, and Joseph Priestley, who referred to it as burnt air or phlogisticated air. Nitrogen gas was inert enough that Antoine Lavoisier referred to it as air or azote, from the Greek word άζωτικός. In an atmosphere of nitrogen, animals died and flames were extinguished
32.
Pearl River Delta
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The Pearl River Delta, also known as Zhujiang Delta or Zhusanjiao, is the low-lying area surrounding the Pearl River estuary, where the Pearl River flows into the South China Sea. It is one of the most densely urbanized regions in the world and is a hub of China. This region is considered an emerging megacity. The nine largest cities of PRD had a population of 57.15 million at the end of 2013. According to the World Bank Group, the PRD has become the largest urban area in the world in size and population. The river delta, also known as the Golden Delta of Guangdong, is formed by three rivers, the Xi Jiang, Bei Jiang, and Dong Jiang. The flat lands of the delta are criss-crossed by a network of tributaries and distributaries of the Pearl River, the Pearl River Delta is actually two alluvial deltas, separated by the core branch of the Pearl River. The Bei Jiang and Xi Jiang converge to flow into the South China Sea and Pearl River in the west, the Xi Jiang begins exhibiting delta-like characteristics as far west as Zhaoqing, although this city is not usually considered a part of the PRD region. After passing through the Lingyang Gorge and converging with the Bei Jiang, major distributaries of the Xi include Donghui Shuidao, Jiya Shuidao, Hutiaomen Shuidao, Yinzhou Hu, and the main branch of the Xi Jiang. Jiangmen and Zhongshan are the major found in the western section of the delta. The Bei Jiang enters the plains at Qingyuan but doesnt begin to split until near Sanshui. From here the two main distributaries are Tanzhou Shuidao and Shunde Shuidao which form multiple mouths along the west side of the Pearl Rivers estuary. Two other distributaries, Lubao Yong and Xinan Yong, split from the Bei further north, the other major city in the north section of the delta is Foshan. The Dong Jiang flows through Huizhou into the delta and it begins diverging northeast of Dongguan into many distributaries, including the Dongguan Shuidao. Distributuares enter the Pearl River as far north as Luogang and as far south as Hu Men, saltwater crocodiles were present within the Pearl River estuary during antiquity. The eastern side of the PRD, dominated by foreign capital, is the most developed economically, the western areas, dominated by local private capital, are open for development. New transport links between Hong Kong, Macau and Zhuhai in the PRD are expected to open up new areas for development, further integrate the cities, and facilitate trade within the region. 1985, the PRD had been dominated by farms and small rural villages, but after the economy was reformed and opened
33.
Central and Wan Chai Reclamation
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Central and Wan Chai Reclamation is a project launched by the government of Hong Kong since the 1990s to reclaim land for different purposes. The project was first mentioned in the 1985 planning strategy by the Government, the Government then completed a feasibility study in 1989, followed by endorsement of the then Land Development Policy Committee on the project. The proposed reclamation extends along the waterfront from Sheung Wan to Causeway Bay, the project is divided into five phases. It also provided land for new piers, replacements of other facilities affected by reclamation, works started in 1993 and were completed in June 1998. This phase of reclamation is part of the Airport Core Programme, upon completion of the project, the coastline of Central was extended up to 350 metres beyond the original coastline. The Central Reclamation Phase 2 reclaimed 5.3 hectares of land at the former Tamar naval base, the reclamation formed land for the Tamar Site, and also five commercial development sites. Works started in December 1994 and were completed in September 1997 and it has been proposed that a new complex housing the headquarters of the Government and the Legislative Council be built on the reclaimed land. It was originally planned to reclaim 32 hectares of land, but has reduced to 18 due to public opposition. Above-ground construction is scheduled to be completed in 2011, the underground Central-Wan Chai Bypass is scheduled for completion in 2017. The island configuration is to ensure water quality in the vicinity remained at satisfactory levels after reclamation was completed. Works commenced in March 1994 and were completed in July 1997, Wan Chai Development Phase II extends along the waters edge from the Central Reclamation Phase III to Causeway Bay. Construction work commenced in 2009 and is planned to be completed in 2017, the works involve the temporary reclamation – for a period of several years – of Causeway Bay Typhoon Shelter and the former public cargo working area. It undertook to keep the temporary reclamation to the minimum and to reinstate the seabed after completion of the construction works, not everyone welcomed with the reclamation plan warmly. Some Hong Kong residents thought the action was totally unnecessary, it did nothing good, instead of building a bypass, the opponents urge the government to start an electronic road toll scheme in the community. On 5 October 2003, over 1,000 protesters dressed in blue marched on the Central Government Offices calling for a halt to work in the harbour. They also promised to follow up with a three-pronged protest next month using land, sea, the government had lost the first round of a court battle, but then appealed against the decision. The government resumed work to reclaim 230,000 m² of the harbour after the society failed in its bid to get hold of an order to provisionally halt work ahead of Decembers judicial review. Both have become potent symbols for environmentalists, who have staged protests, the SPH requested judicial reviews on the Reclamation, on 27 February 2003 and 25 September 2003 respectively
34.
Central, Hong Kong
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Central is the central business district of Hong Kong. It is located in Central and Western District, on the shore of Hong Kong Island, across Victoria Harbour from Tsim Sha Tsui. The area was the heart of Victoria City, although that name is used today. As the central district of Hong Kong, it is the area where many multinational financial services corporations have their headquarters. Consulates general and consulates of countries are also located in this area, as is Government Hill. The area of Chung Wan, named Central in English, was one of the districts in Victoria City. The English name Central became prevalent after the Island Line of the MTR metro system was built in the early 1980s, on some older maps, it and the area to its west are named Kwan Tai Lo below Victoria Peak. It formed a channel, Chung Mun, with Tsim Sha Tsui, the eastern part of Central District has been known as Admiralty since the completion of Admiralty Station in the early 1980s. Central is located on the shore of Hong Kong Island, across Victoria Harbour from Tsim Sha Tsui. It is bordered in the west by Sheung Wan, with the border being along Aberdeen Street and it is bordered in the east by Admiralty, an eastern extension of the central business district. As such, Admiralty is sometimes considered a part of Central, Central is bordered in the south by Mid-levels, an area halfway up Victoria Peak. The boundary between Central and Mid-levels is not clearly defined, for district council elections purposes, the area, together with Admiralty, correspond roughly to the Chung Wan constituency. The boundaries of such constituencies may be subject to modification, the British landed on Possession Point of Sheung Wan in 1841. They soon decided to build a city on the north coast of Hong Kong Island, and the present-day Central was chosen to house major military facilities and an administrative centre. The area soon attracted both Westerners and Chinese to trade and live in the area, and a Canton Bazaar was built between Cochrane Street and Graham Street in 1842, the area was soon zoned for Westerners only, and the Chinese residents were restricted to Sheung Wan. The area was dominated by the presence of Victoria City. The popularity of this area would also boost the population of Hong Kong from 5,000 in 1841 to 24,000 in 1848, Government House and other Hong Kong Government buildings were completed during this period on Government Hill. Various barracks, naval base and residence of Commander, Flagstaff House were built on the east end of the district, between 1860 and 1880 the construction of City Hall, Theatre Royal and other financial structures made Central the heart of Hong Kong
35.
Tamar, Hong Kong
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Tamar is a 4. 2-hectare site which was the former location of the naval basin attached to the headquarters of the British Forces Overseas Hong Kong. It is now the site of the new Central Government Offices of the Hong Kong Government at the harbourfront of Central, Hong Kong Island, Hong Kong. HMS Tamar was the name of a British naval vessel arrived in Hong Kong in 1897. The British garrison pre-handover was stationed at the Prince of Wales Building within the base, a number of large-scale functions including expos and musical or theatrical performances had been staged at the Tamar site before. A few examples are Saltimbanco by Cirque Du Soleil, the annual Hong Kong Product Expo, the Hong Kong International Film Festival, the entire site has played host to a funfair in 2005 and 2006. The Tamar site has been a target of criticism by the public for its poor record of music events. In 2003, the Hong Kong government made plans to create a concert event to help Hong Kong out of the economic crisis brought about by the SARS epidemic. The event took heavy criticism as it was considered extremely poor organization, the Tamar site was suggested since the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, where the conference was to be held, is visible from it. However the government turned down this suggestion and instead the site was used exclusively as a processing centre during the conference. Over 1,000 vehicles traveled to and from the venue on a daily basis. All vehicles and their drivers and passengers had to go through screening at the Tamar Site for security verification before being allowed to enter the conference venue, the Hong Kong Government relocated the Central Government Offices, the Legislative Council and the Chief Executives Office to the Central Government Complex. The government halted the Tamar project development in November 2003 because of the economic climate during the SARS outbreak. Two hectares of the 4. 2-hectare site was reserved for use as recreational space in the $5.2 billion development plan. The rest of the site being used for government buildings, most offices of the government bureaus was moved from various locations into the new complex, as well as the Legislative Council of Hong Kong. The government also decided to cut an exhibition gallery from the project, in 2004, the government had promised the Trade Development Council that they would be able to rent the grounds as a temporary venue for mega fairs twice a year, for a total of three years. Originally the Hong Kong Gifts & Premium Fair and the Hong Kong Electronics Fair were to have exhibits at the Tamar site once a year, with the plan to become Asias largest sourcing fair. The government decided to cut out the use for exhibitions in order to lower the development intensity of the site, the contract for the project was signed on 28 January and work started in mid-February 2008, and finished in 2011. Groups like the Hong Kong Institute of Planners did not think the Tamar site should be made into a government complex, southorn Playground Central-Wan Chai Bypass, which will go directly under the Tamar site Tamar development project
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Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre
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The Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre is one of the two major convention and exhibition venues in Hong Kong, along with AsiaWorld-Expo. It is located in Wan Chai North, Hong Kong Island, built along the Victoria Harbour, it is linked by covered walkways to nearby hotels and commercial buildings. The venue was designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP, larry Oltmanns led the design as the Design Partner with SOM. The Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre is not to be confused with the Hong Kong Exhibition Centre, the original building was built on reclaimed land off Gloucester Road in 1988. The glass curtain was the worlds largest at the time, overlooking the Victoria Harbour on three sides, the second phase of the centre, located on an artificial island, was constructed from 1994 to 1997, and features a bird-like rooftop. The project took only 48 months from reclamation to completion, the main constructor of the extension was a joint venture named Hip Hing Construction Co Ltd Dragages et Travaux Publics. Originally, Phase Two was connected to Phase One with an atrium link, the complexs construction was financed by New World Development, with the Renaissance Harbour View Hotel, Grand Hyatt Hong Kong and Harbour View Apartments on top of it. HKCEC made an expansion during 2006–2009. The Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre Limited, an owned subsidiary of NWS Holdings Ltd, is contracted by the HKTDC for the day-to-day management. The 850 member staffs responsibilities include administration, marketing, booking, scheduling, event co-ordination, maintenance, security and food, the latter including banqueting, and managing the Centres restaurants. The managing director of the company is Monica Lee-Müller, there have been comments that the management of HKCEC provided preferential treatment to some client with regards to booking dates at the HKCEC. Cliff Wallace denied these allegations in a meeting with the Legislative Councilors in the 2003–2004 session, the centre hosts more than 45 international trade fairs for buyers from more than 100 countries each year, including the worlds largest leather fair and watch and clock fair. The regular international fairs for giftware, toys, fashion, jewellery, electronics and it also served as the site of the Hong Kong handover ceremony, which signified the end of British colonial rule. The Sixth WTO Ministerial Conference took place at the HKCEC from 13–18 December 2005, the NGO Centre was located at Phase I of the centre. This is the first time a WTO Ministerial Conference and the NGO Centre was located under the roof as the Conference proceedings. The Star Ferry, a Hong Kong ferry service, operates from the HKCEC across the Victoria Harbour, HKCEC, Wan Chai – Cultural Centre, Tsim Sha Tsui The fare is HK$2.5 for adults, and HK$1.7 for children. Currently, the closest MTR metro station serving the HKCEC is Wan Chai Station on the Island Line, the proposed North Island Line, an extension of the MTRs Tung Chung Line, will have a station at HKCEC. In addition, the HKCEC is served by bus routes number 2A,8,40, the game series was banned in China
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Sheung Wan
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Sheung Wan is an area in Hong Kong, located in the north-west of Hong Kong Island, between Central and Sai Ying Pun. Administratively, it is part of the Central and Western District, the name can be variously interpreted as Upper District, or Gateway District. Sheung Wan was one of the earliest settled places by the British, the site of the original occupation of Hong Kong Island by British forces in 1842 was at Possession Street, between Queens Road Central and Hollywood Road. A plaque to this effect can be found in Hollywood Road Park at the top of Possession Street, the foot of Possession Street, Possession Point, was at that time on the shoreline, but is now several hundred yards inland due to reclamation. Sheung Wan is surrounded by Sai Ying Pun in the west, Central in the east, Victoria Harbour in the north, part of the Mid-Levels is located within Sheung Wan. Garfield Mansion is in Sheung Wan while Green Field Court is in Central. The borders location south of Seymour Road in the Mid-Levels is unknown, the route covers 35 historic buildings and sites in Sheung Wan. Streets in Sheung Wan include, Aberdeen Street, marking the border with Central Bonham Strand, named after Charles Saint George Cleverly, the 2nd Surveyor General of Hong Kong Government. Kennedy Town became the new terminus of the Island on December 28,2014, trams also run through Sheung Wan, and one of the tram termini, Western Market, is located at the junction of Des Voeux Road Central and Morrison Street near its namesake. The Hong Kong-Macau Ferry Terminal in the Shun Tak Centre has ferries and helicopters to Macau, numerous bus routes run through Sheung Wan. Central Bus Terminus, located next to the Hong Kong-Macau Ferry Terminal, is one of the largest bus termini on Hong Kong Island, previously the French International School of Hong Kong operated a Kindergarten campus in Shops 2-4 on the ground floor of Tung Fai Gardens in Sheung Wan. Central and Western Heritage Trail, Sheung Wan Route Dr Sun Yat-sen Historical Trail List of areas of Hong Kong
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Causeway Bay
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Causeway Bay is a heavily built-up area of Hong Kong, located on Hong Kong Island, and covering parts of Wan Chai District. The Cantonese name is romanized as Tung Lo Wan as in Tung Lo Wan Road. The rent in the areas of Causeway Bay was ranked as the worlds most expensive for the second year in a row. Causeway Bay borders the Eastern District, since 1982, two sub-districts of Causeway Bay had been grouped into the Eastern District of district board elections, whilst Causeway Bay Middle was grouped with the Wan Chai District to the west. However, local government decisions—other than electoral demarcations—still affect the region as a whole, since 1994, Hong Kong district board elections have further been sub-divided into smaller districts. The northern sector consists of the area around Victoria Park, the middle sector coincides with the business district. To cope with change, the constituency boundary between Wan Chai District and Eastern District was changed in the new year day of 2016. As a result, the Victoria Park and Tin Hau became a part of Wan Chai District starting from that day, as a consequence, the whole of Causeway Bay is now part of Wan Chai District. The typhoon shelter of Causeway Bay and the Tin Hau Temple reveal that the area was once a fishing village, before urban development and massive land reclamation, Causeway Bay was a heavily silted bay. Its former shape can be found on maps by tracing Tung Lo Wan Road, in the early stage of development a causeway was built, which is the present-day Causeway Road. In the 1950s, the coastline was pushed forward when the remains of the bay was reclaimed for the Victoria Park. The statue had been away during the Second World War from Statue Square at Chater Road. Kellett Island off the coast of Causeway Bay has disappeared and connected as a result of the land reclamation. The names of Yee Wo Street, Jardines Bazaar and Jardines Crescent reveal that the land in area was sold by the British colonial government to Jardines in the early 19th century. The area was therefore named East Point, after a place on the coastline. The present-day Causeway Bay is usually confused with East Point, the former having assimilated the latter, the original Causeway Bay is near the present-day Tin Hau MTR station, whereas the Causeway Bay MTR station is at East Point. The present-day concept of the Causeway Bay area covers all the way until Canal Road, or the Canal Road district or in Chinese Ngo Keng Kiu, East Point is now regarded as part of Causeway Bay as result of assimilation of the geographical name. An East Point Road can still be found, which reveals the pointed coastline in the early days, Causeway Bay or East Point is one of Hong Kongs major shopping districts
39.
Society for Protection of the Harbour
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Society for Protection of the Harbour is a Hong-Kong-based organisation founded in November 1995. It is a charitable, non-political and non-profit making green group, there has historically been reclamation of Victoria Harbour since the early part of the 20th century. Strategic Planning, Harbour reclamation may isolate Hong Kong from the Pearl River Delta hinterland, landscape Destruction and Loss of Habitat, Harbour reclamation may result in a permanent destruction of Hong Kongs irreplaceable natural asset, Victoria Harbour. The loss of natural coastlines might result in the loss of natural habitats, Air and Water Pollution, Intensive development of the reclaimed areas may worsen air quality in the nearby urban area. Moreover, reclamation worsens the water quality of the harbour, thus adversely affecting marine life, flushing Action, Reclamation may narrow the Harbour and potentially creates dead spots where there is little flushing tidal action, and where litter and sewage could accumulate. The Society was established in 1995 Inspired by his mother to preserve the Victoria Harbour, chairman of the local chapter of Friends of the Earth, Christine Loh became Deputy Chairperson. On 11 October 2003, Winston Chu announced his resignation as Chairperson of SPH due to threats against him. To fill the left by Chu, Christine Loh stepped in as the new Chairperson of SPH. Chu nevertheless continues to provide advice and other support to SPH. In 1996, the Society for Protection of the Harbour conducted the Save Our Harbour Campaign which received support of 170,000 signatures from the Hong Kong public, the same year in May, SPH succeeded in opposing the Governments proposal of reclaiming 190 hectares of Green Island. In April 1997, SPH appointed Dr. Robert Chung of the Social Sciences Research Centre of The University of Hong Kong to conduct a survey on harbour reclamation. The result showed that over 95% of Hong Kong people opposed further reclamation on the Harbour, in June, the Protection of the Harbour Ordinance was legislated. In 1999, further amendment of the Ordinance extended its coverage from Central Harbour to the entire Victoria Harbour, the aim of the Ordinance is to protect and preserve the Harbour as a special public asset and a natural heritage of Hong Kong. In addition, he claimed in a radio conversation with Winston Chu that the government will try to reduce reclamation to an absolute minimum. In December, the proposal of reclaiming a part of North Point waterfront for a centre was successfully halted by SPH. Reclamation in the Harbour should only be carried out to meet community needs. In June 2001, SPH successfully stopped the Governments project of reclaiming 79 hectares of the Western District waterfront, during 2002–2003, SPH succeeded in applying for Judicial Review against the Town Planning Board. The Governments proposal of reclaiming 26 hectares of the Wanchai waterfront was again opposed, on 5 October 2003, SPH conducted The Blue Ribbon Campaign in which around 3,000 supporters joined
40.
Christine Loh
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Christine Loh Kung-wai, OBE, JP, is Under Secretary for the Environment in Hong Kong. She is a former Legislative Councillor, founder and CEO of Civic Exchange, founder of the Citizens Party, until her appointment as Undersecretary for the Environment, Loh was CEO of Civic Exchange, the Hong Kong think tank that she co-founded in 2000. She was named Woman of the Year for 2006 by Hong Kong Business and she has long been associated with the campaign to save Hong Kongs Harbour from excessive land reclamation and overdevelopment. Loh received her Honourable degree on 15 July 2016 from University of Exeter for her contribution to environment protection and she said, To be among the young graduates at Exeter makes me feel young and energetic again. Its like having a chance to do better - to make up for not having done by best when I was a student. Perhaps like me when I was at my graduation many years ago and they will learn more about themselves in time and try hard to accomplish what they wish to do. Loh attended St. Pauls Convent School in Causeway Bay, and later Island School in Mid-levels and she then went to Bedford High School in the UK. — before joining a Hong Kong company, where she headed the special projects division between 1992 and 1994. In April 2006, she was elected by shareholders of the Hong Kong Exchanges, Loh was appointed to the Legislative Council in 1992. In 1995 and 1998 she ran in two elections and won by large margins. She co-founded, in 1995, the Society for Protection of the Harbour and was responsible for creating and sponsoring the historic Protection of the Harbour Ordinance. While part of the camp in LegCo, she took a less confrontational approach than some. In 2000, she and Lisa Hopkinson co-founded a Hong Kong-based non-profit think tank, Civic Exchange, and once entered the political spotlight. She resigned as its chief executive on 11 September 2012 upon her appointment as Undersecretary for the Environment in the administration of CY Leung, taking up her new post the following day. At the same time, she resigned from all her positions in other organisations, academic affiliations. From 1991, Loh hosted a public affairs programme and a variety of TV programmes
41.
Queen's Pier
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Queens Pier, named after Queen Victoria, was a public pier in front of City Hall in Edinburgh Place, Central, Hong Kong. For three generations it served not only as a pier in day-to-day use but also as a major ceremonial arrival. The pier witnessed the arrival in Hong Kong of all of Hong Kongs governors since 1925, Elizabeth II landed there in 1975, as did the Prince. On 26 April 2007, the pier was closed by the government to land reclamation, soon after the adjacent Star Ferry pier was closed. There was fierce opposition by conservationists, who carried over their campaign to preserve the landmark, Police officers evicted some 30 protesters from the site on 1 August 2007, activists filed for a judicial review, and the High Court hearing began on 7 August. On 10 August, the court dismissed the request, finally, the Queens Pier was completely demolished in February 2008. Its base piles were also removed in March 2008, in 2008, since dismantling, the government attempts to create the appearance of public support for reassembling the pier at the new waterfront has been criticised by conservationists. A former wooden pier at the known as Queens Statue Wharf was replaced in 1925. It was a landing area for the British Royal Family visiting Hong Kong. The first governor to land there was Cecil Clementi, in November 1925, the preceding governor, Reginald Stubbs, boarded the Victoria from the pier at the end of his term on 31 October 1925. The 1925 pier was originally named Statue Pier, but was renamed Queens Pier in honour of Queen Victoria on 31 July 1924. It was a pier made of concrete and steel, with round pillars and arches. Intended to be opened in time for the arrival of Edward and it was demolished in January 1955. As part of reclamation, the old pier was demolished. Work commenced in February 1954 on a new pier on the new waterfront designed in a utilitarian style. The structure was described as a U-shaped plan, with an open-sided superstructure and it consisted of tiled reinforced concrete base and pillars, and was modelled after previous piers in the area. Its flat roof was made of concrete, topped with bitumen waterproofing. Five sets of stairs allowed boat passengers to board and disembark, the secondary design goal was to maximise public access to the very limited open space in Central in contrast with the city bustle
42.
Edinburgh Place Ferry Pier
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Edinburgh Place Ferry Pier, often referred to as the Star Ferry Pier, was a pier in Edinburgh Place, Central, Hong Kong, serving the Star Ferry. The pier, with its tower, was a prominent waterfront landmark. Built in 1957 at the height of the Modern Movement, it was the generation of the Star Ferry Pier in Central, and was located near the City Hall. The ferry service from the pier was suspended on 11 November 2006, demolition commenced on 12 December, and was completed in early 2007. The entire waterfront where the third pier was situated was created in the late 1950s following a major land reclamation. The shoreline was shifted from its position at the time, level to the Mandarin Hotel, the pier was built in 1957 in Edinburgh Place, at the height of the Modern Movement, near the City Hall complex which was being planned at the time. The Star Ferry Pier was designed by a local Chinese architect and he worked in the Architectural Office of the Hong Kong Government from 1952 to 1957 as an assistant architect. He designed the façade of the pier, and the Chief Architect, Michael Wright, added the Clock Tower to make the more balanced. The chimes of the clock installed at the pier marked every quarter-hour since the piers inauguration in 1957. The clock was a gift from John Keswick, who had in turn received it from the Prince of Belgium, the mechanism was manufactured by British company Edward John Dent, which also provided the mechanical signature to Big Ben of London. There is a bus terminus on the Kowloon side, which is conveniently situated close to the Tsim Sha Tsui Ferry Pier. Thousands of residents passed through this gateway to Hong Kong Island from the Kowloon Peninsula daily from 1957 until 2006. However, the inauguration of the Cross Harbour Tunnel in 1972 popularised vehicular travel across the harbour and reduced the flow of passengers. From 1972 to 2006, the ferry was used by many as the shortest route from Tsim Sha Tsui to Central District. On the island side, various routes of the NWFB, Citybus, the cost was estimated at HK$3.5 billion. The Government said that the significance of the third-generation pier would be recognised and promised to recreate the landmark on the new waterfront. In 2001, an assessment for the Central Reclamation recommended the relocation of the Star Ferry Pier. 3D Laser Scanning Technology in digital recording of structures was applied to capture images of the pier before the demolition
43.
Central Plaza (Hong Kong)
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Central Plaza is a 78-storey,374 m skyscraper completed in August 1992 at 18 Harbour Road, in Wan Chai on Hong Kong Island in Hong Kong. It is the third tallest tower in the city after 2 International Finance Centre in Central and it was the tallest building in Asia from 1992 to 1996, until the Shun Hing Square in neighbouring Shenzhen was built. Central Plaza surpassed the Bank of China Tower as the tallest building in Hong Kong until the completion of 2 IFC, Central Plaza was also the tallest reinforced concrete building in the world, until it was surpassed by CITIC Plaza, Guangzhou. The building uses a floor plan. On the top of the tower is a four-bar neon clock that indicates the time by displaying different colours for 15-minute periods, an anemometer is installed on the tip of the buildings mast, at 378 metres above sea level. The mast has a height of 102 m and it also houses the worlds highest church inside a skyscraper, Sky City Church. Central Plaza is made up of two components, a free standing 368-metre-high office tower and a 30. 5-metre-high podium block attached to it. The ground level public area along with the public sitting out area form an 8,400 m2 landscaped garden with fountain, trees, no commercial element is included in the podium. The first level is a thoroughfare for three pedestrian bridges linking the Mass Transit Railway, the Convention and Exhibition Centre and the China Resource Building. By turning these space to use, the building got 20% plot ratio more as bonus. The shape of the tower is not truly triangular but with its three corners cut off to provide better internal office spaces. The building was designed to be triangular in shape because it would allow 20% more of the area to enjoy the harbour view as compared with a square or rectangular shaped buildings. Nonetheless, the building plan causes the air handling unit room in the internal core to also assume a triangular configuration. With only limited space, this makes the adoption of a standard AHU not feasible, furthermore, all air-conditioning ducting, electrical trunking and piping gathered inside the core area has to be squeezed into a very narrow and congested corridor ceiling void. As the building is situated opposite to the HKCEC, the way to get more sea view for the building. All these problems can increase the capital cost of the building systems, as a general practice, for achieving a clear height of 2.6 to 2.7 m, a floor-to-floor height of 3.9 to 4.0 m would be required. However, because of high windload in Hong Kong for such a super high-rise building, therefore, a comprehensive study was conducted and finally a floor height of 3.6 m was adopted. With this issue alone, a construction cost saving for a total of 58 office floors
44.
A Kung Ngam
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A Kung Ngam is a village and an area in northeast Shau Kei Wan in the north of Hong Kong Island, in Hong Kong. It contains a terminal market, several temples and the Hong Kong Museum of Coastal Defence. A temple dedicated to Tam Kung is located in A Kung Ngam, a Kung Ngam was a rock quarry in the 19th century, and the area was predominantly inhabited by quarry workers who immigrated from Huizhou and Chaozhou. A fire broke out in the morning of 31 October 2005. Some ten houses in the village were burnt, a Kung Ngam Shipyards was a port for export of stone materials in the mid 18th century. As there were so many ships, it became a typhoon shelter, during the Dragon Boat Festivals, dragon boats races were held in Shau Kei Wan Typhoon Shelter, where dragon boats were once made by the shipyards. At the end of the 20th century, land reclamation from the sea caused fishing boats to anchor elsewhere, nowadays, the number of shipyards has decreased due to a decrease in number of ships going there. List of buildings, sites and areas in Hong Kong Maps and weather information for A Kung Ngam
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Green Island, Hong Kong
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Green Island is an island off the northwest coast of Kennedy Town on the Hong Kong Island in Hong Kong, separated by the Sulphur Channel. A smaller island nearby to the east, uninhabited, is called Little Green Island, administratively, the two islands are part of Central and Western District. Green Island is largely uninhabited and at the east coast is Green Island Reception Centre, top of the hill is an office of Marine Department and a light house southwest guides the ships in Sulphur Channel. The buildings of the Green Island Lighthouse Compound were declared as monuments in 2008, the historic buildings include the two lighthouses built in 1875 and 1905 respectively and the European quarters of the lighthouse compound. These three buildings are individually Grade II historic buildings, the first lighthouse began operation July 1,1875,12 metres tall, and was constructed of granite. There are two cross-shaped openings on its wall for ventilation and lighting, the openings resemble gun-posts like those found in medieval European castles. These are of the construction that was found on the Cape Collinson Lighthouse. Construction began on a lighthouse in 1904, that was completed in 1905. Built of granite and concrete, sitting beside the older one, a concrete spiral staircase with rails give access to the lantern room. An upper floor was added to the house in 1923. The two lighthouses, along with Cape DAguilar Lighthouse, Waglan Island Lighthouse and Tang Lung Chau Lighthouse are the only prewar lighthouses remaining, the island is densely covered with woodland and tall scrub. A total of 150 plant species and a variety of butterfly species have been found. One ant species not previously found elsewhere in Hong Kong was recorded on Green Island, the locally rare reef egret and white-bellied sea eagle have been seen on the island. Green Island is an important reporting point for location aviation in Hong Kong for entry to Victoria Harbour by air, all local traffic flying into or out of the Harbour must report overhead Green Island. In the 1990s, the Hong Kong Government has proposed reclamation of Sulphur Channel and turning Green Island into a residential area, the proposal was put off due to strong opposition from environmental concern groups. Aerial image from Google Map Ha, Louis, Waters, Dan, Hong Kongs Lighthouses and the Men Who Manned Them. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch
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Tsing Yi
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Tsing Yi, sometimes referred to as Tsing Yi Island, is an island in the urban area of Hong Kong, to the northwest of Hong Kong Island and south of Tsuen Wan. With an area of 10.69 km², the island has extended drastically by reclamation along almost all its natural shore, three major bays or harbours, Tsing Yi Lagoon, Mun Tsai Tong and Tsing Yi Bay in the northeast, have been completely reclaimed for new towns. The island is in the northwest of Victoria Harbour and part of its coastline is subject to the Protection of the Harbour Ordinance, Tsing Yi iterally means green clothes, but is also a kind of fish, probably blackspot tuskfish, once abundant in nearby waters. People named the island after the fish, Tsing Yi Tam or Tsing Yi Tam Shan also appeared on some early Chinese maps. The island was known as Chun Fa Lok once upon a time. Now, Chun Fa Lok is still a name or a former village on the southeast corner of the island. A government document in the Ming Dynasty named the water near Chun Fa Lok Chun Fa Yeung, the Ming navy defeated once pirate fleets there. In some historical sources, Tsing-I Island is used instead of Tsing Yi Island, Tsing Yi Town, together with Kwai Chung Town, is part of Tsuen Wan New Town in the Kwai Tsing District in the New Territories. Although Tsing Yi Island is a de facto outlying island, it is not accordingly included in the Islands District, historically, Tsing Yi Island, with Kwai Chung, were usually in the same administration unit as Tsuen Wan because of their proximity and close-knit neighbourhood. Unlike Kwai Chung, however, whose villages are part of Tsuen Wan Rural Committee, Tsing Yi Island has its own, there were about 4,000 people on the island when the British took the New Territories around 1898. In the following one hundred years, the population has grown to nearly 50 times this size, in an estimation in 2007, there are about 200,400 people. It is expected to grow to 203,300 in the near future, most of the population live in Tsing Yi Town. Tsing Yi Island is an island with Tsing Yi Peak in the south. Small plain can be found surrounding the former Tsing Yi Lagoon in island northeast, the rocks on the island are mainly granite and were exposed due to extensive housing, industrial and infrastructure construction. Although the island is not fallen in the administration of country park, the Tsing Yi Peak climbs to 334 m and is a barrier separating industrial west and residential east. The hilly area of the island largely remains intact and is designated as a green belt, in 1997 a once lost endemic plant, Hong Kong croton, was found in the woodland beneath the highest peak, Tsing Yi Peak, on the island. In the early days, the inhabitants on the island were mostly farmers, the major population concentrated in the northeast portion of the island. Farmers grew rice, vegetables and pineapples, while fishermen lived in huts connected by walkways in the small harbour of Tsing Yi Tong which stretched far back into the island
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