Hong Kong (香港) is a collection of
islands and a
peninsula in Southern
China, directly south of
Shenzhen in the
Guangdong province. The city was named after a certain type of
fragrant tree that is prevalent around the area (translation of
Hong Kong is "fragrant harbor"), people have ridiculed its astonishingly high levels of
pollution by dubbing it "Stink Harbor". To a degree it is true, but there has been massive
cleanup efforts made by the
government in the past decade.
Hong Kong was a former British colony, having been seized by the British Empire after the First Opium War and the resulting Treaty of Nanjing. At that time, it was a mere fishing village. The Second Opium War gave Britain the peninsula and more holdings inland, expanding Hong Kong to its current borders. It has since been all handed back to China and is now a "SAR", or special administrative region, and enjoys largely the same degree of unparalleled economic freedom as before.
Other than the Japanese invasion in 1941 and communist riots during the 1960's, Hong Kong has been a relatively peaceful place, and experienced phenomenal economic and population growth. There is over 6 million people packed into Hong Kong today. Hong Kong and Singapore shares the distinction of being Asia's financial centers. The old city, the island of Victoria (the original British holding), along with Kowloon (the tip of the Hong Kong peninsula) and the New Territories, the extension, make up Hong Kong, and most of it is densely packed with people.
Hong Kong is known for its wealth around Asia, and true enough, it has the highest Rolls Royce per capita in the entire world. To a degree, the whole place stinks of greed. Politics is unimportant, and the whole place is filled with apathetic money-grabbers. I don't particularly like the attitude of the people, but you have to admit there is good shopping there. Lots of good food too.
I lived there for a good part of my childhood. Hong Kong doesn't have too much manufacturing left, it is mainly a service industry and banking city, and many international companies have their Asia offices located there. Again, it is a very rich place.
It has an excellent subway and public transportation system, which is good because traffic jams are horrible there. It links the whole place so you can go almost anywhere for about US$2. Places I would recommend in Hong Kong include Causeway Bay and surroundings, the Peninsula area (Tsimshachui), and other shopping areas. Food is found anywhere. This place used to be a mecca for software piracy, but has largely died out now since the Chinese takeover. I still know a couple good stores though.