Kowloon Trade

Coastal and regional commerce based on the Kowloon peninsula opposite Hong Kong Island, ceded to Britain under the 1860 Convention of Peking after the Second Opium War. Kowloon’s wharves and godowns handled the South China junk and coastal-steamer trade in tea, silk, salt, and general cargo feeding the Hong Kong entrepot. The adjacent New Territories were leased to Britain for 99 years in 1898. The port grew into the Kowloon and Kwai Chung container terminals of the twentieth century.