Kowloon Tsai Park is a

park A park is an area of natural, semi-natural or planted space set aside for human enjoyment and recreation or for the protection of wildlife or natural habitats. Urban parks are urban green space, green spaces set aside for recreation inside t ...

located in the

Kowloon Tsai Kowloon Tsai () is a place in Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong. It was formerly a village in a valley, which has now been developed into a low-density and upscale residential area in New Kowloon. History According to the ''Gazetteer of Xin'an county'' ...

area of

New Kowloon New Kowloon is an area in Hong Kong, bounded in the south by Boundary Street, and in the north by the ranges of the Eagle's Nest, Beacon Hill, Lion Rock, Tate's Cairn and Kowloon Peak. It covers the present-day Kwun Tong District and Wong T ...

in Hong Kong. It lies within the

Kowloon City District Kowloon City District is one of the 18 districts of Hong Kong. It is located in the city of Kowloon. It had a population of 381,352 in 2001, and increased to 418,732 in 2016. The district has the third most educated residents while its res ...

and opened on 5 June 1964.

History

In the 1950s, the area was used as a borrow area to supply fill for the extension of the nearby

Kai Tak Airport Kai Tak Airport was the international airport of Hong Kong from 1925 until 1998. Officially known as Hong Kong International Airport from 1954 to 6 July 1998, it is often referred to as Hong Kong International Airport, Kai Tak, or simply Ka ...

runway. The

Urban Council The Urban Council (UrbCo) was a municipal council in Hong Kong responsible for municipal services on Hong Kong Island and in Kowloon (including New Kowloon). These services were provided by the council's executive arm, the Urban Servic ...

commissioned architecture firm

Leigh and Orange Leigh & Orange Ltd (Chinese: 利安, formerly known as 李柯倫治), founded in Hong Kong in 1874, is an international architectural and interior design practice. The group has a total of 550 staff and operates through its headquarters ...

to draw up plans for the redevelopment of this area of "barren hills and waste lands" as a new recreational area for the citizens of Kowloon. The first phase of the new park opened in 1964. The Kowloon Tsai Swimming Pool, the first in Kowloon, was funded by the

Royal Hong Kong Jockey Club The Hong Kong Jockey Club (HKJC) is one of the oldest institutions in Hong Kong, having been founded in 1884. In 1959, it was granted a Royal Charter and renamed The Royal Hong Kong Jockey Club (). The institution reverted to its original name ...

and also opened in 1964. Originally, the pool was not open in the evening because it sat under the airport flight path, hence the

Civil Aviation Department A civil aviation authority (CAA) is a national or supranational statutory authority that oversees the regulation of civil aviation, including the maintenance of an aircraft register. Role Due to the inherent dangers in the use of flight vehicles ...

would not agree on the use of outdoor floodlighting there.

Features

The park consists of three football fields (2 artificial grass and 1 natural grass), two basketball courts, two 7-a-side football courts, one public swimming pool, two tennis courts, a

Bauhinia ''Bauhinia'' () is a large genus of flowering plants in the subfamily Cercidoideae and tribe Bauhinieae, in the large flowering plant family Fabaceae, with a pantropical distribution. The genus was named after the Bauhin brothers Gaspard and J ...

Garden and children's playgrounds. Kowloon Tsai Sports Ground is located within the park. It consists of an international standard football field, running tracks and a spectator stand with bathroom facilities. The grandstand seats 1,216. The

Kowloon Tsai Swimming Pool The Kowloon Tsai Swimming Pool () was the first public swimming pool complex in Kowloon, Hong Kong. Since the old Victoria Park Swimming Pool was demolished in 2014, it stands as the oldest existing public swimming pool in Hong Kong. The pool ...

was the first swimming pool in Kowloon. It features a 50-metre competition pool and smaller leisure pools. The LCSD plans to reconstruct the pool complex to provide an indoor heated pool. The famous checkerboard for the Kai Tak Runway 13 approach can be found at the top of the park. Due to this, the hill where the checkerboard was located was christened as

Checkerboard Hill Checkerboard Hill (), also known as Kowloon Tsai Hill () and Tak Mee Mountain (), is a small hill in the northern part of the Kowloon peninsula in Hong Kong. Standing at tall, Checkerboard Hill is located next to Kowloon Tsai Park and the Lok Fu ...

References

Urban public parks and gardens in Hong Kong Kowloon City District Kowloon Tsai {{coord, 22.332384, 114.183480, display=title

History

Features

See also

References