Why go
Kowloon, Lantau and the mainland north of Boundary Street entered British control under different arrangements. Understanding the lease explains why 1997 became decisive, and why the eventual agreement transferred the entire territory. It also prevents the common geographical mistake of reducing the New Territories to a collection of offshore islands.
The full story
British officials sought additional territory to improve the security of the Hong Kong port. The 1898 Convention for the Extension of Hong Kong Territory created a 99-year lease covering land north of the earlier Kowloon boundary and numerous islands, including Lantau. This was a different arrangement from the cession of Hong Kong Island in 1842 and southern Kowloon in 1860. As the lease’s end approached, Britain and China negotiated Hong Kong’s future. Margaret Thatcher and Zhao Ziyang signed the Sino-British Joint Declaration on 19 December 1984. It provided for the transfer of the whole of Hong Kong, rather than only the leased land and islands. The declaration set out the “one country, two systems” framework and arrangements intended to preserve Hong Kong’s existing economic and social system for fifty years after the transfer. Sovereignty passed to China on 1 July 1997. Those historical commitments explain the handover framework rather than serving as a statement of current travel rules.