Qualla: Sai Kung District

Sai Kung District: Introduction

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Geographer, CC BY-SA 3.0. Hong Kong has 18 administrative districts, and most visitors pass through several of them without realizing it — Kowloon City for the night market, Wan Chai for the bars, Central for the towers. Sai Kung District is the one most Hong Kongers think of when they imagine the place they would go if they could leave the city without actually leaving it. Called the 'back garden of Hong Kong,' the district stretches across the southern Sai Kung Peninsula and the Clear Water Bay Peninsula in the New Territories, plus more than 70 offshore islands. Its population of over 460,000 is concentrated mostly in the new town of Tseung Kwan O — but the district's identity belongs to the hills, the harbours, and the small settlements that have been here far longer than any new town.

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Image: Geographer | CC BY-SA 3.0

Sai Kung District: Older Than the Colony

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Teeup25, CC BY-SA 4.0. The land that became Sai Kung District was ceded to British Hong Kong in 1898 under the Convention for the Extension of Hong Kong Territory, which added the New Territories to the existing colony. But settlement in the area predates the British presence by many centuries. Hakka f...

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Image: Teeup25 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Sai Kung District: The Back Garden

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit WiNG, CC BY-SA 3.0. The phrase 'back garden of Hong Kong' is something of an understatement. Sai Kung District contains Sai Kung East Country Park and Sai Kung West Country Park, two of the largest protected areas in Hong Kong, together covering tens of thousands of hectares. The coastline alone — j...

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Image: WiNG | CC BY-SA 3.0

Sai Kung District: A Name That Travels

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit CC BY-SA 3.0. There is an odd footnote in Sai Kung's identity: the Chinese characters for 'Sai Kung' — 西貢 — are also the Vietnamese Chữ Nôm characters for 'Saigon,' the former name of Ho Chi Minh City. This geographical coincidence occasionally causes confusion, especially since there is also ...

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Image: CC BY-SA 3.0

Sai Kung District: New Town, Old District

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ksenia Bramley, CC BY 3.0. The paradox of Sai Kung District is that its most populous place is a thoroughly modern new town. Tseung Kwan O, built on reclaimed land on the western edge of the district, has grown into a dense residential city of several hundred thousand people with its own MTR station, shopp...

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Image: Ksenia Bramley | CC BY 3.0