Sights Overview

To stand on the tip of Kowloon Peninsula and look out across the harbor to the full expanse of the Hong Kong Island skyline is to see the triumph of ambition over fate. Whereas it took Paris and London 10 to 20 generations to build the spectacular cities seen today, and New York 6, in Hong Kong almost everything you see was built in the time since today's young investment bankers were born.

Hong Kong Island and Kowloon are divided both physically and psychologically by Victoria Harbour. On Hong Kong Island, the central city stretches only a few kilometers south into the island before mountains rise up, but the city goes several more kilometers north into Kowloon. In the main districts and neighborhoods, luxury boutiques are a stone's throw away from old hawker stalls, and a modern, high-tech horse-racing track isn't far from a temple housing over 10,000 buddhas.

West of Hong Kong Island lie several islands, including Lantau -- home to Disney and the Tian Tan Buddha -- which is connected via a suspension bridge to west Kowloon. Kowloon's southern tip is the mall-, market-, and museum-filled Tsim Sha Tsui district. Northeast are several New Kowloon districts, beyond which lie in the eastern New Territories -- mostly made up of mountainous country parks and fishing villages.