ABSTRACT
The roots of Hong Kong’s emigration go a long way into the past. Hong Kong was first occupied by the British in January 1841, when the population of the island was only a few thousand, probably between five and six thousand. By October of that year, the numbers had more than doubled, and almost four years later, in mid-1845, the population was estimated to have reached 23,817, of whom only 957 were non-Chinese. 1 Hong Kong as an urban center is thus fairly recent in historical terms. It was a creation of colonialism, and its population has been, throughout its history, heavily and often primarily migrant.
