Double Island or Wong Wan Chau () is an

island An island (or isle) is an isolated piece of habitat that is surrounded by a dramatically different habitat, such as water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, skerries, cays or keys. An island ...

located in the north-eastern part of Hong Kong. Administratively, it is part of North District.

Geography

Double Island has an area of 2.13 km². It is the second largest island in North District, the largest being Crooked Island. Its highest point is at 139 m. Its western coast is facing

Double Haven Double Haven or Yan Chau Tong () is a harbour enclosed by Double Island, Crescent Island and Crooked Island within the north-eastern New Territories of Hong Kong. It is known for its scenery and natural environment, and for the calm seas from ...

. Wong Wan () is a bay of Double Island. It is one of the 26 designated marine fish culture zones in Hong Kong.

Conservation

Double Island became part of the

Plover Cove (Extension) Country Park Plover Cove also known for its Chinese names Shuen Wan Hoi () or Shuen Wan (), is a cove in the Tai Po District of Hong Kong, near Tolo Channel and Tolo Harbour. Geography It is encircled by the hills Pat Sin Leng and Wan Leng (), the Yim Tin ...

in 1979.

Facilities

* Outward Bound Hong Kong Adventure Base

History

Typhoon of 1858

It is wrongly suggested that it was the Double Island in Hong Kong's Double Haven (Yan Chau Tong, ) where the September Typhoon of 1858 destroyed several well-known opium clippers, including the ''Anonyma'', ''Gazelle'', ''Pantaloon'', and ''Mazeppa''.

Basil Lubbock Alfred Basil Lubbock MC (9 September 1876 – 3 September 1944 at Monks Orchard, Seaford) was a British historian, sailor and soldier. He was a prolific writer on the last generation of commercial sailing vessels in the Age of Sail. He was an e ...

's ''The Opium Clippers'', cited in the original entry, is quite clear (p.347) that the Double Island in question was that at what was then called Swatow (today

Shantou Shantou, alternately romanized as Swatow and sometimes known as Santow, is a prefecture-level city on the eastern coast of Guangdong, China, with a total population of 5,502,031 as of the 2020 census (5,391,028 in 2010) and an administrative ...

). The island is one of two that lie in the entrance to the river at Shantou and is the inner one, then called Masu. Today it is called Mayu (). For corroboration see Mayers & Dennys,

William Frederick Mayers William S. Frederick Mayers (1831–1878) was a British official and sinologist. About He was son of the Rev. Michael John Mayers, and was born on 7 January 1831 in Tasmania. At the time his father was colonial chaplain there, and was subsequentl ...

and Nicholas Belfield Dennys, ''The Treaty Ports of China and Japan'' (Hong Kong: Shortrede, 1867), p.236 for the identity of Double Island. For the typhoon and the damage to the vessels, ''The Courier'' (Hobart, Tasmania), 22 December 1858, p.3 for a report of Mr Midwood, of the Commissariat service, resident on Double Island during the typhoon.

References