Shui Hau () is a small village on

Lantau Island Lantau Island (also Lantao Island, Lan Tao) is the largest island in Hong Kong, located West of Hong Kong Island and the Kowloon Peninsula, and is part of the New Territories. Administratively, most of Lantau Island is part of the Islands ...

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

Antiquities Advisory Board The Antiquities Advisory Board (AAB) is a statutory body of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region with the responsibility of advising the Antiquities Authority on any matters relating to antiquities and monuments. The AAB was establish ...

. Historic Building Appraisal
Nos. 49 and 50 Shui Hau
/ref>

Location

Shui Hau is located west of

Tong Fuk Tong Fuk (, formerly ) is a village and an area on Lantau Island in Hong Kong. It is a popular place for holiday recreation. Tong Fuk Beach, to the south of the village, is a popular local attraction alongside the other beaches of South Lant ...

, north of

South Lantau Road The following is an incomplete list of roads in Lantau, Islands District/Tsuen Wan District, Hong Kong. List See also *List of streets and roads in Hong Kong References {{Reflist Hong Kong Roads Roads A road is a linear way for the conv ...

and south of

Lantau Peak Lantau Peak or Fung Wong Shan (literally "Fenghuang, Phoenix Mountain") is the second highest peak in Hong Kong and the highest point on Lantau Island, with a height of above sea level. Name origin The mountain is actually made up of a pair o ...

. It is close to the

South China Sea The South China Sea is a marginal sea of the Western Pacific Ocean. It is bounded in the north by the shores of South China (hence the name), in the west by the Indochinese Peninsula, in the east by the islands of Taiwan and northwestern Phil ...

to its south, facing Shui Hau Wan ().

Administration

Shui Hau is a recognized village under the

New Territories The New Territories is one of the three main regions of Hong Kong, alongside Hong Kong Island and the Kowloon Peninsula. It makes up 86.2% of Hong Kong's territory, and contains around half of the population of Hong Kong. Historically, it ...

Small House Policy The Small House Policy (SHP, ) was introduced in 1972 in Hong Kong. The objective was to improve the then prevailing low standard of housing in the rural areas of the New Territories. The Policy allows an indigenous male villager who is 18 ye ...

History

The village is three hundred years old. It has historically been mainly inhabited by members of the

Chan Chan may refer to: Places *Chan (commune), Cambodia *Chan Lake, by Chan Lake Territorial Park in Northwest Territories, Canada People *Chan (surname), romanization of various Chinese surnames (including 陳, 曾, 詹, 戰, and 田) *Chan Caldwel ...

(), the

Tang Tang or TANG most often refers to: * Tang dynasty * Tang (drink mix) Tang or TANG may also refer to: Chinese states and dynasties * Jin (Chinese state) (11th century – 376 BC), a state during the Spring and Autumn period, called Tang (唐) b ...

(), the Fung () and the

Chi Chi or CHI may refer to: Greek *Chi (letter), the Greek letter (uppercase Χ, lowercase χ); Chinese *Chi (length), ''Chi'' (length) (尺), a traditional unit of length, about ⅓ meter *Chi (mythology) (螭), a dragon *Chi (surname) (池, pin ...

() clans. The settlement Shui Hau Tsuen () was recorded in the 1819 edition of '' Xin'an Gazetteer''. A village population of 126 was reported by

Austin Coates Austin Coates (1922–1997) was a British civil servant, writer and traveller. He was the son of noted English composer Eric Coates. Austin Coates wrote extensively on topics related to the Asia-Pacific region, particularly Hong Kong and Macau. ...

in 1955, while James W. Hayes reported a population of 142 in 1957-58. The Shui Hau Public School () was built by the government in 1952. It was closed in 1989 as a consequence of the decrease in students. A Chan Ancestral Hall () had previously be located on the same site until its collapse in the early 20th century. A new one was built and opened in 2000.

Features

The coast at Shui Hau features a

tidal flat Mudflats or mud flats, also known as tidal flats or, in Ireland, slob or slobs, are coastal wetlands that form in intertidal areas where sediments have been deposited by tides or rivers. A global analysis published in 2019 suggested that tidal fl ...

. The long sandy beach is one of the best sites in

for

kiteboarding Kiteboarding or kitesurfing is a sport that involves using wind power with a large power kite to pull a rider across a water, land, or snow surface. It combines aspects of paragliding, surfing, windsurfing, skateboarding, snowboarding, and wak ...

and is home of the Hong Kong Kiteboarding School, which has promoted the sport there since 2006. The house at Nos. 49 and 50 Shui Hau was built around the 1920s by the Chan clan. The walls in the front part of the building are made of

granite Granite () is a coarse-grained (phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies undergro ...

blocks and its architectural style is

Qing The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin dynasty founded by the Jianzhou Jurchens, a Tungusic-speaki ...

vernacular. The house is listed as a Grade III historic building.

List of the 1,444 Historic Buildings with Assessment Results
/ref> Shui Hau is located at the end of Stage 9 and at the start of Stage 10 of the

Lantau Trail The Lantau Trail (), opened on 4 December 1984, is a long-distance footpath on Lantau Island in the New Territories of Hong Kong. The trail is a loop starting and finishing in Mui Wo. It is the third longest trail in Hong Kong, after MacLehose T ...

References

External links

Delineation of area of existing village Shui Hau (South Lantao) for election of resident representative (2019 to 2022)
* * * *

Pictures of Nos. 49 and 50 Shui Hau
{{coord, 22.221929, 113.91482, display=title Villages in Islands District, Hong Kong Lantau Island