Hong Kong is a city, and former British colony, in southeastern China. Vibrant and densely populated, it’s a major port and global financial center famed for its tower-studded skyline.Hong Kong’s economic and political history has been primarily determined by its geographical location. The territory of Hong Kong is comprised of two main islands (Hong Kong Island and Lantau Island) and a mainland hinterland. It thus forms a natural geographic port for Guangdong province in Southeast China. In a sense, there is considerable continuity in Hong Kong’s position in the international economy since its origins were as a commercial entrepot for China’s regional and global trade, and this is still a role it plays today. From a relatively unpopulated territory at the beginning of the nineteenth century, Hong Kong grew to become one of the most important international financial centers in the world. Hong Kong also underwent a rapid and successful process of industrialization from the 1950s that captured the imagination of economists and historians in the 1980s and 1990s.
