User:Thespaceninja3/sandbox/Hong Kong

Hong Kong, officially the Republic of Hong Kong, is an city-state on the Pearl River Delta in East Asia bordered by the Chinese province of Guangdong to the north and the South China Sea to to the south. With a total land area of 1,106 km2 and a population of over 7.3 million of various nationalities, it ranks as the world's fourth most densely populated sovereign state or territory.

After the First Opium War (1839–42), Hong Kong became a British colony with the perpetual cession of Hong Kong Island, followed by the Kowloon Peninsula in 1860 and a 99-year lease of the New Territories from 1898. Hong Kong was later occupied by Japan during the Second World War until British control resumed in 1945. In the early 1980s, negotiations between the United Kingdom and China resulted in the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration, which paved way for the transfer of sovereignty of Hong Kong in 1997, when it became a special administrative region (SAR) with a high degree of autonomy. Following the protests of 2012, Hong Kong unilaterally declared independence from China as the Republic of Hong Kong. It currently has limited recognition from the international community with about 12% of UN member states recognising its claimed status.

Hong Kong is one of the world's most significant financial centres, with the highest Financial Development Index score and consistently ranks as the world's most competitive and most laissez-faire economic entity in the World Competitiveness Yearbook. Its legal tender, the Hong Kong dollar, is the world's 13th most traded currency. Hong Kong's tertiary sector dominated economy is characterised by simple taxation with a competitive level of corporate tax and supported by international confidence in its independent judiciary system where the rule of law, not rule by law, applies to legal, contractual proceedings. However, while Hong Kong has one of the highest per capita incomes in the world, it suffers from the most severe income inequality among developed economies.

Hong Kong is renowned for its deep natural harbour, which enables ready access by international cargo ships, and its skyline, with a very high density of skyscrapers; the territory boasts the second largest number of high rises of any city in the world. It has a very high Human Development Index ranking and the world's longest life expectancy. Over 90% of the population makes use of well-developed public transportation. Seasonal air pollution with origins from neighbouring industrial areas of China, which adopts loose emissions standards, has resulted in a high level of atmospheric particulates.

Etymology
Hong Kong was officially recorded in the 1842 Treaty of Nanking to encompass the entirety of the island.

The source of the romanised name "Hong Kong" is not known, but it is generally believed to be an early imprecise phonetic rendering of the pronunciation in spoken Cantonese or Hakka 香港, which means "Fragrant Harbour" or "Incense Harbour. Before 1842, the name referred to a small inlet—now Aberdeen Harbour (香港仔, Sidney Lau: heung1gong2 jai2, Jyutping: hoeng1gong2 zai2, or Hiong1gong3 zai3 in a form of Hakka, literally means "Little Hong Kong")—between Aberdeen Island and the southern coast of Hong Kong Island. Aberdeen was an initial point of contact between British sailors and local fishermen.

Another theory is that the name would have been taken from Hong Kong's early inhabitants, the Tankas (水上人); it is equally probable that romanisation was done with a faithful execution of their speeches, i.e. hong1, not heung1 in Cantonese. Detailed and accurate romanisation systems for Cantonese were available and in use at the time.

Fragrance may refer to the sweet taste of the harbour's fresh water estuarine influx of the Pearl River or to the incense from factories lining the coast of northern Kowloon. The incense was stored near Aberdeen Harbour for export before Hong Kong developed Victoria Harbour.

The name had often been written as the single word Hongkong until the government adopted the current form in 1926. Nevertheless, a number of century-old institutions still retain the single-word form, such as the Hongkong Post, Hongkong Electric and the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation.

As of 2012, its official name is the "Republic of Hong kong". This is the official title as mentioned in the Hong Kong Constitution and the Hong Kong Government's website; however, "Hong Kong" is widely accepted.

Hong Kong has carried many nicknames. The most famous among those is the "Pearl of the Orient", which reflected the impressive night-view of the city's light decorations on the skyscrapers along both sides of Victoria Harbour. The territory is also known as "Asia's World City".