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  • Writer's pictureMandy & Apple

Why the name Hong Kong?

Have you ever wondered how Hong Kong got its name? If so, read on to find out how we got this interestingly pronounced name. The term Hong Kong is a phonetic translation of the city's Cantonese name 香港 (heung gong), which basically means "Fragrant Harbour."



Before Hong Kong became the international financial city it is known for today, it was a tiny fishing village with only about 7500 inhabitants that Viscount Palmerston, the former British Foreign Secretary, disdained in the 1840s as a "barren rock with hardly a house upon it." 

However, this tiny village was actually a major trading post for producing and exporting a kind of fragrant incense woods (the famous agarwood) during the Ming and Qing Dynasties.

In the past, most agarwood trees were found in the New Territories, particularly near Shatin and west of Lantau Island. The final incense products were then transported to Shek Pai Wan (now Aberdeen) and continued to be exported to Mainland China, Southeast Asia, and Arabia.


Because of the fragrant wood trade, the local boat people who lived in the area started using the name "Fragrant Harbour" to refer to the Aberdeen trading port. Only when the British arrived in the 1840s and used the term to refer to the whole island did Hong Kong, a.k.a. Fragrant Harbour, become known worldwide as Hong Kong.


Fun Facts: Fast-forward to 2024, more than 180 years since the British landed in Hong Kong. Our population has grown to 7.5 million from only 7500.

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