Sham Shui Po, Hong Kong — Towns & Travel Guide

What is Sham Shui Po known for?

Sham Shui Po saw the beginning of public housing in Hong Kong, built to resettle people displaced when fire destroyed the informal housing that stood in the district. The story does not end there. A Vietnamese refugee camp stood in Sham Shui Po in the 1970s, during the movement of people that followed the Vietnam War, and arrivals from Mainland China have long settled in the same district.

Where is Sham Shui Po?

Sham Shui Po is small on the ground. About nine and a half square kilometres make up the district, one of the 18 that Hong Kong is divided into, and that limited ground has had to hold a great many people. Density is the consequence.

Housing has always pressed on the available ground, and the first public housing in Hong Kong went up here after a fire displaced the people living on it. Nine and a half square kilometres is the whole of it. The tropics decide the year.

Sham Shui Po sits in the tropical band above the equator, so the calendar divides into wet and dry rather than into four seasons, and there is little ground inside the district for that to vary across. Its boundary is administrative. Sham Shui Po is one of 18 districts of Hong Kong, and the outline it carries is an administrative one, drawn to divide the city into units rather than to follow anything on the ground.

People arriving from Mainland China have long settled inside those lines, and a Vietnamese refugee camp stood here in the 1970s.

What is Sham Shui Po like?

English serves a visitor here. Sham Shui Po has taken in people arriving from Mainland China over a long stretch, and that history sits behind much of what is written about the district. The 1970s added another chapter.

A Vietnamese refugee camp was set up in the district during the movement of people that followed the Vietnam War, so Sham Shui Po held arrivals from two directions within living memory. Two waves, one district. The camp and the arrivals from Mainland China belong to different decades, but both left their mark on the same nine and a half square kilometres of ground.

It is a working district first. Household earnings in Sham Shui Po are the lowest of the 18 districts of Hong Kong, and the district has carried that character for a long time rather than acquiring it lately. Public housing started from that.

The government built the first public housing in Hong Kong here to resettle people displaced by a fire, which makes Sham Shui Po District the place where that form of housing in Hong Kong began. English is enough to get by on.

What is the history of Sham Shui Po?

A fire changed the district. People displaced by it were resettled in what became the first public housing in Hong Kong, which is why the district is named as the origin of that housing. The 1970s brought a camp.

Sham Shui Po hosted a Vietnamese refugee camp during the movement of people that followed the Vietnam War, one more episode in a district that has repeatedly taken in arrivals, including those coming from Mainland China.

What is the climate of Sham Shui Po?

Nine and a half square kilometres hold the same weather throughout. Sham Shui Po lies in the tropical band above the equator, so its year turns on wet and dry rather than on a set of four seasons, and the district is too small for one end to differ from the other. Rain has its months.

Dense housing on limited ground is what the season meets in Sham Shui Po, which is a different experience of the same weather from an open district.

How do you get to Sham Shui Po?

Every approach is a city approach. Sham Shui Po is one of 18 districts of Hong Kong, so reaching it means crossing from a neighbouring district rather than travelling out of the city, and about nine square kilometres is all there is to cover once inside. Once inside, everything is close.

The district's compactness means the difference between one address in Sham Shui Po and another is measured in minutes, which matters more here than choosing between separate centres.