Tai Po District, Hong Kong — Towns & Travel Guide

What is Tai Po District known for?

Tai Po District takes in Tai Po New Town, Tai Po Tau, Tai Po Kau, Hong Lok Yuen, Ting Kok, Plover Cove, Lam Tsuen Valley and Tai Mei Tuk, and then adds the exclave of Sai Kung North across the water. Grass Island and Ping Chau belong to it. Tai Po New Town is the de facto administrative centre, and the Tolo Harbour lies between it and the northern part of the Sai Kung Peninsula that the district also holds.

Where is Tai Po District?

Tai Po District is not one piece. Roughly one hundred and forty-eight square kilometres fall under the name, taking in Tai Po New Town, Tai Po Tau, Tai Po Kau, Hong Lok Yuen, Ting Kok, Plover Cove, Lam Tsuen Valley and Tai Mei Tuk. Then come the exclaves.

Sai Kung North occupies the northern part of the Sai Kung Peninsula and brings islands with it, Grass Island and Ping Chau among them, all of it administered from the other side of the water. The Tolo Channel makes the division. Tai Po proper and Sai Kung North are separated by the Tolo Channel and the Tolo Harbour, which is why one district holds two pieces of ground that face each other across open water.

The district sits in the Eastern New Territories. That places Tai Po District inside the New Territories, one of the 18 districts of Hong Kong and among the wider of them by ground. Names carry the terrain.

Lam Tsuen Valley and Plover Cove name a valley and an inlet rather than streets, while Tai Po New Town is where the administration of all of it sits. Ping Chau and Grass Island belong to Sai Kung North, so the district's ground includes islands as well as the valley and the town. The tropics govern the year.

Tai Po District lies in the tropical band above the equator, and the same wet and dry pattern reaches Hong Lok Yuen, Ting Kok and the islands off Sai Kung North alike.

What is Tai Po District like?

English carries a visit here. Tai Po District is described as suburban rather than urban, and the spread of names inside it, Tai Po Tau, Tai Po Kau, Hong Lok Yuen, Ting Kok and Tai Mei Tuk, reads as a collection of separate places under one administration. Tai Po New Town holds the centre.

It serves as the de facto administrative centre, which gives a district of valleys, coast and islands a single point of reference on the mainland side of the Tolo Channel. Hong Lok Yuen is not Tai Mei Tuk. Distance is part of the character.

Sai Kung North, with Grass Island and Ping Chau, is administered from across the Tolo Harbour, so part of the district's life happens where the rest of it cannot be reached on foot. The Lam Tsuen Valley pulls the other way. Inland ground and the water at Plover Cove sit inside the same boundary as Tai Po New Town, which is what a district of a hundred and forty-eight square kilometres in the Eastern New Territories can hold.

English works across all of it, from the new town to the islands.

What is the history of Tai Po District?

Tai Po New Town anchors the district. Tai Po New Town became the de facto administrative centre of Tai Po District, and the surrounding areas, Tai Po Tau, Tai Po Kau, Hong Lok Yuen and Lam Tsuen Valley, sit under the same name. The exclaves belong to it too.

Sai Kung North, the northern part of the Sai Kung Peninsula, belongs to Tai Po District along with Grass Island and Ping Chau, even though the Tolo Channel and the Tolo Harbour lie between them.

What is the climate of Tai Po District?

Tolo Harbour is the local water. Tai Po District lies in the tropical band above the equator, so its year turns on wet and dry, and the exposure differs between the Lam Tsuen Valley inland and Ping Chau out among the islands. Rain has its season.

A district of a hundred and forty-eight square kilometres stretched across the Tolo Channel does not meet the weather in one piece, and Plover Cove and Tai Mei Tuk face it from the water's edge.

How do you get to Tai Po District?

Two halves, two journeys. Tai Po New Town sits on the main body of the district and serves as its de facto administrative centre, while Sai Kung North, Grass Island and Ping Chau lie across the Tolo Channel from it. The Eastern New Territories carry the approach.

Arrivals cross the New Territories to reach Tai Po Tau, Ting Kok or Tai Mei Tuk, and a hundred and forty-eight square kilometres then have to be crossed inside the district itself.