To know Hong Kong and to learn its maritime history, it is helpful to know where the territory is located. But ancient Chinese maps were somewhat confusing and incomplete in laying out Hong Kong’s position. Maps of Hong Kong from the Ming period (1368-1644) only managed to delineate the position of Hong Kong with varying degrees of accuracy. The earliest extant map of the coast of Guangdong, compiled by Zheng Ruozeng (鄭若曾) in his book Chouhai Tubian (《籌海圖編》) in the Jiajing period (嘉靖) (1522-1566), did not even show the island of Hong Kong. The map, however, did mark the position of Kwun Fu Shan (官富山), today’s north Kowloon, but misplaced the location of Tai Hai Shan (大奚山), which is now known as Lantau Island. Of all the coastal and regional maps in the Ming and Qing dynasties, only the map in Yue Da Ji placed the island of Hong Kong in the correct relative position as an island opposite Kowloon hills with Lei Yue Mun (鯉魚門) to the east. Published in 1596, it is also this map that had illustrations of European sailing ships, which were apparently passing through and taking anchorage in what is today called Victoria Harbour.
Subsequent Chinese maps, such as Chen Lunjiong’s The Complete Map of the Coastline (陳倫炯《沿海全圖》) in 1730 and maps in Xinan County Gazetteer (《新安縣志》) in 1819 or the 1822 edition of Guangdong Gazetteer (《廣東通志》) marked the island of Hong Kong by the name of Hung Heung Lo (紅香爐). Foreign square-rigged sailing ships and Chinese junks plied those coastal waters well before 1841, which is evidence that the area had witnessed a long period of maritime activity, in contrast to the anecdotal remark that the island was “a barren island with hardly a house upon it”.[2]
Notes:
- [2]British Foreign Minister Palmerston made those remarks upon receiving report that British troops would take control of Hong Kong. See: 馬士著；張匯文等譯：《中華帝國對外關係史》，第一卷（北京：生活．讀書．新知三聯書店，1958），頁728；G.R. Sayer, Hong Kong, 1841-1862: Birth, Adolescence and Coming of Age (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1980), p. 80.
