Before the British
Not empty. The region held fishing villages, salt production and pearl fisheries, and the Five Great Clans — Tang, Hau, Pang, Liu and Man — held walled settlements in what is now the New Territories from the Song dynasty onwards.
The Ping Shan Heritage Trail and the walled villages at Kat Hing Wai are what remains of it.
The Opium Wars
Britain financed its tea purchases from China by selling Indian opium. When the Qing government moved against the trade in 1839, Britain went to war.
Hong Kong Island was occupied in 1841 and ceded by the Treaty of Nanking (1842). Kowloon followed in 1860. In 1898 the New Territories were leased for 99 years, to 30 June 1997.
The colony
A free port between China and the world. The population grew from a few thousand to over 1.6 million by 1941, largely through migration during the collapse of the Qing and the civil war that followed.
The 1894 plague killed thousands in Tai Ping Shan and led to the demolition of the district. Chinese residents were barred by law from living on the Peak until 1946.
The occupation
Japan attacked on 8 December 1941 and the colony surrendered on Christmas Day. Three years and eight months of occupation followed, during which the population fell from around 1.6 million to 600,000.
The refugee city
After 1945 hundreds of thousands crossed from China. Squatter settlements covered the hillsides.
On Christmas Day 1953 a fire at Shek Kip Mei left around 53,000 homeless, and the government began the public housing programme that now houses close to half the population.
Manufacturing built the economy — textiles, plastics, toys, electronics — until it moved across the border to Shenzhen in the 1980s and Hong Kong became a financial centre instead.
The 1967 riots killed 51 people and prompted substantial reform. The Kowloon Walled City grew in a jurisdictional gap until it was cleared in 1993.
The handover
Because the New Territories lease expired in 1997, Britain negotiated. The Sino-British Joint Declaration (1984) transferred the whole territory and established “one country, two systems” for fifty years, to 2047.
Tiananmen in 1989 brought a million people onto Hong Kong’s streets. Sovereignty transferred on 1 July 1997.
Since
2003 — 500,000 marched against a national security bill, which was withdrawn. 2014 — the Umbrella Movement, 79 days of occupation. 2019 — months of protests beginning over an extradition bill. June 2020 — Beijing imposed a National Security Law. 2021 — the electoral system was restructured. 2024 — a local national security ordinance was passed under Basic Law Article 23.
A substantial emigration has followed, principally to the UK under the BN(O) route.
The fuller account is in From Fishing Villages to One Country, Two Systems.