Britons never made up more than a small portion of the population in

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 Delta i ...

, despite Hong Kong having been under

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

rule for more than 150 years. However, they did leave their mark on Hong Kong's institutions,

culture Culture () is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these groups ...

and

architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing building ...

. The British population in Hong Kong today consists mainly of career

expatriate An expatriate (often shortened to expat) is a person who resides outside their native country. In common usage, the term often refers to educated professionals, skilled workers, or artists taking positions outside their home country, either ...

s working in

bank A bank is a financial institution that accepts deposits from the public and creates a demand deposit while simultaneously making loans. Lending activities can be directly performed by the bank or indirectly through capital markets. Because ...

ing, education,

real estate Real estate is property consisting of land and the buildings on it, along with its natural resources such as crops, minerals or water; immovable property of this nature; an interest vested in this (also) an item of real property, (more general ...

law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vario ...

and

consultancy A consultant (from la, consultare "to deliberate") is a professional (also known as ''expert'', ''specialist'', see variations of meaning below) who provides advice and other purposeful activities in an area of specialization. Consulting servic ...

, as well as many British-born ethnic Chinese, former Chinese

émigré An ''émigré'' () is a person who has emigrated, often with a connotation of political or social self-exile. The word is the past participle of the French ''émigrer'', "to emigrate". French Huguenots Many French Huguenots fled France followin ...

s to the UK and Hong Kongers (mostly ethnic Chinese) who successfully applied for full British citizenship before the transfer of sovereignty in 1997. There were 33,733 Britons in Hong Kong, as of the 2011 Hong Kong Census.Interactive Data Dissemination Service
Hong Kong Census, 2011

Numbers

Estimating the number of Britons in Hong Kong, as with the rest of Asia, can be difficult for a variety of reasons. One reason is that not all

immigrants Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not natives or where they do not possess citizenship in order to settle as permanent residents or naturalized citizens. Commuters, tourists, a ...

or visitors register with the British Consulate-General in Hong Kong. Another is that a large part of the British population is transitory, working in the city for only a few months or years. Hong Kong's

Immigration Department The Immigration Department of the Government of Hong Kong is responsible for immigration control of Hong Kong. After the People's Republic of China assumed sovereignty of the territory in July 1997, Hong Kong's immigration system remained l ...

estimated that there were 35,000 British citizens living in the Special Administrative Region eight months after the handover of sovereignty in 1997. (This number included many British-born ethnic Hong Kong and ethnic Hong Kong who obtained full British citizenship in the 1990s under the

British Nationality Selection Scheme The British Nationality (Hong Kong) Selection Scheme, usually known in Hong Kong as simply the British Nationality Selection Scheme (BNSS), was a process whereby the Governor of Hong Kong invited certain classes of people, who were permanent re ...

in Hong Kong.) A large proportion of the British who were government employees left following the handover. There have been noticeably fewer native Britons emigrating to Hong Kong since the handover. During British Hong Kong era, Britons wishing to live and work in Hong Kong were not subject to the immigration and

visa Visa most commonly refers to: *Visa Inc., a US multinational financial and payment cards company ** Visa Debit card issued by the above company ** Visa Electron, a debit card ** Visa Plus, an interbank network *Travel visa, a document that allows ...

restrictions that would apply today. It was common for young Britons to go to Hong Kong to work in blue-collar occupations, particularly during economic downturns in Britain. This advantage ended with the handover: Britons applying for permission to work in Hong Kong must now prove they will have jobs that cannot be filled by local residents, which means blue-collar jobs in Hong Kong (e.g., in

retail Retail is the sale of goods and services to consumers, in contrast to wholesaling, which is sale to business or institutional customers. A retailer purchases goods in large quantities from manufacturers, directly or through a wholesaler, and ...

construction Construction is a general term meaning the art and science to form Physical object, objects, systems, or organizations,"Construction" def. 1.a. 1.b. and 1.c. ''Oxford English Dictionary'' Second Edition on CD-ROM (v. 4.0) Oxford University Pr ...

) are for the most part no longer an option for Britons. In the decade before the handover around 3.4 million British Dependent Territories Citizens (BDTCs) of Hong Kong (mainly ethnic Chinese) acquired the status of

British National (Overseas) British National (Overseas), abbreviated BN(O), is a class of British nationality associated with the former colony of Hong Kong. The status was acquired through voluntary registration by individuals with a connection to the territory who ha ...

(BN(O)) by registration. They do not have the right of abode in the UK (just as BDTCs did not have that right), and China does not recognise Hong Kong-born ethnic Chinese BN(O)s as British nationals. However, BN(O) are considered British outside China.

Migration history

The first British presence in the area was the

British East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and South ...

, which started trading in the area in 1699 and set up a

trading post A trading post, trading station, or trading house, also known as a factory, is an establishment or settlement where goods and services could be traded. Typically the location of the trading post would allow people from one geographic area to tr ...

in Canton in 1711. The British captured Hong Kong Island in 1841 during the First Opium War and were officially

ceded The act of cession is the assignment of property to another entity. In international law it commonly refers to land transferred by treaty. Ballentine's Law Dictionary defines cession as "a surrender; a giving up; a relinquishment of jurisdictio ...

the territory in 1842 under the

Treaty of Nanking The Treaty of Nanjing was the peace treaty which ended the First Opium War (1839–1842) between Great Britain and the Qing dynasty of China on 29 August 1842. It was the first of what the Chinese later termed the Unequal Treaties. In the ...

. Over the next 150 years Britons came to Hong Kong in relatively large numbers—many to work in the colony's administration, trading houses, and merchant banks—along with other Europeans and

Americans Americans are the citizens and nationals of the United States of America.; ; Although direct citizens and nationals make up the majority of Americans, many dual citizens, expatriates, and permanent residents could also legally claim Ame ...

. Between 1991 and 1996 there was a substantial increase in the number of British citizens in Hong Kong; the number of UK passport holders in Hong Kong more than doubled, to over 34,000. This increase was mainly due to the

, which granted British citizenship to 50,000 families (mostly ethnic Chinese), some of whom did not emigrate. However, in those years many young people from the United Kingdom went to Hong Kong to take up unskilled jobs (e.g., as doorpersons or in food service).

Ethnicity

Among the 33,733 citizens of the United Kingdom living in Hong Kong, 19,405 are of some European ethnicity, 6,893 are Chinese, 2,337 are Indian, 1,047 are Pakistani, 829 are Nepalese, 273 are other Asians, 227 are Filipino, 98 are Thai, 40 are Japanese, and 40 are Indonesian. 2,544 other Britons are of a different ethnicity.

Education

Schools using the education system of England in Hong Kong include: *

Harrow International School Hong Kong Harrow International School of Hong Kong is a British international boarding and day, all-through school in Tuen Mun, Hong Kong. When it opened on 3 September 2012, it became the first British boarding school in Hong Kong. It was also the th ...

* Kellett School – As of 2011 children with UK citizenship make up 69% of the student body *

Malvern College Hong Kong Malvern College Hong Kong () is a British international school in Pak Shek Kok, Hong Kong, China. The school is an affiliate of Malvern College in Malvern, Worcestershire, United Kingdom. The college's affiliated preschool and kindergarten, M ...

South Island School South Island School is a private international school founded by the English Schools Foundation of Hong Kong, located at 50 Nam Fung Road, Aberdeen, Hong Kong, with about 1,400 students enrolled and 107 teachers. Students come from diverse bac ...

– As of 2011 children with UK citizenship are the largest component of the student body

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Britons In Hong Kong British diaspora in Asia + European diaspora in Hong Kong +

Numbers

Migration history

Ethnicity

Education

See also

References