Please excuse us! More than 170 years of reclamation had radically changed the landform and landscape of most parts of Hong Kong. Many of them are so altered that their names now sound out of place with their appearance, ringing an odd tone when they really are “Hills without hills” and “Bays without bays”.

Hong Kong takes on the mountainous characteristics of the South China region, and the city, particularly Kowloon and Hong Kong Island, was overspread with mountains and hillocks. More specifically, Hong Kong Island possessed only a few narrow strips of flatland along the coast, and Kowloon was a hilly landform carpeted with mountain ranges. When the British occupied Hong Kong Island in 1841, the southern coasts like Aberdeen and Stanley were already settled with indigenous population; the British, therefore, resolved to establish themselves on the northern coast, which to boot brought them in adjacency to Victoria Harbour. For a port city like Hong Kong, the earliest infrastructural effort was made to consolidate the waterfront. To this end the British, making use of local labour and material and the advanced western technology they possessed, initiated a series of reclamation schemes, which meant to create city space for the building of roads and structures and to enhance anchorage along and off the narrow coast.