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Hong Kong Destination GuideHistory
After the Mongol invasion, Hong Kong's prominence declined. It began to attract the attention of China and the rest of the world again in the 19th century, when it was ceded to Britain after the Opium Wars. Hong Kong's earliest recorded non-Asian visitor was the Portuguese mariner Jorge Alvares who arrived in 1513. Alvares began trading with the Chinese, and the Portuguese continued to make periodic trade stops at various locations along the coast.
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Hong Kong was a British colony from 1842, until its sovereignty was transferred to the PRC in 1997. It is governed as special administrative region under the Basic Law of Hong Kong. Under the terms of the Sino-British Joint Declaration, the PRC has promised that Hong Kong will have a relatively high degree of autonomy until at least 2047, fifty years after the transfer of sovereignty. Under the "One Country, Two Systems" policy, it retains its own legal system, currency, customs policy, cultural delegation, international sport teams, and immigration laws.
Hong Kong has been inhabited since the Palaeolithic Age. The area now known as Hong Kong became an important trading region and a significant strategic location for the Chinese mainland during the Tang and Song dynasties. 
Tea, silk, and other Asian luxury goods were introduced in Europe by the Portuguese, and by the mid-18th century these items were in high demand, particularly tea. The British, to redress their net outflow of payments to China for tea and to force China to conduct relations like other states, invaded China, winning the First Opium War in 1841. During the war, Hong Kong Island was first occupied by the British, and then formally ceded by the Qing Dynasty of China in 1842 under the Treaty of Nanking.  |