New Territories

New Territories (新界) ( abbreviated NT), after the English term for the New Territories, is the northernmost, largest and newest part of the Hong Kong SAR. The area with the districts Islands (离岛), Kwai Tsing (葵青), North (北区), Sai Kung (西贡) Sha Tin (沙田), Tai Po (大埔), Tsuen Wan (荃湾), Tuen Mun (屯门) and Yuen Long (元朗) covers an area of ​​953.48 km ².

History

The New Territories go back to a contract between the Qing Dynasty and the United Kingdom, which was closed in 1898. At that time, Hong Kong and Kowloon Iceland already belonged to the British Crown Colony. The British government initially showed no ambition to take more public areas of China. Although there were British advocates for an expansion of the Hong Kong territory of military and economic reasons, until 1898, the London government refused, however, to avoid jeopardizing the commercial relationship.

A rethink came after Germany, Russia and France laid claim to various Chinese regions. France occupied and leased Zhanjiang, a few hundred kilometers west of Hong Kong, and tried to convince me not to assign specific areas to foreign powers, the Chinese government. This also included the Guangdong province to the New Territories included at that time. In response, negotiated on June 9, 1898, the United Kingdom and China in the Second Beijing Convention on the lease of the New Territories to the British out. The agreement took effect on 1 July 1898 in force and had, other than for the previous areas of Hong Kong, for a limited period of 99 years. However, it took until April 16, 1899 to the British government expressed formal sovereignty over the New Territories.

Geography

In 2011, the population was 3,691,093, representing a population density of 3,801 inhabitants per square kilometer.