Hong Kong, administrative region of China, consisting of a mainland portion located on the nation’s southeastern coast and about 235 islands. Hong Kong is bordered on the north by Guangdong Province and on the east, west, and south by the South China Sea. Hong Kong was a British dependency from the 1840s until July 1, 1997, when it passed to Chinese sovereignty as the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR).

The British control of Hong Kong began in 1842, when China was forced to cede Hong Kong Island to Britain after the First Opium War. In 1984 Britain and China signed the Sino-British Joint Declaration, which stipulated that Hong Kong return to Chinese rule in 1997 as the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) of China. The Joint Declaration and a Chinese law called the Basic Law, which followed in 1990, offer for the SAR to operate with a high degree of economic autonomy for 50 years beyond 1997.