Hong Kong Is Leased to Britain.

Hong Kong, a large and prosperous city-state on the coast of southern China, was a British colonial possession until 1997. It is a major trading center and has over seven million inhabitants on just over 400 square miles of land. Hong Kong consists of Hong Kong Island, several hundred lesser islands, the mainland city of Kowloon, and the mainland region of the New Territories. The New Territories were leased by China to Great Britain on June 9, 1898, for a term of 99 years beginning on July 1 of that year. This region comprises over nine-tenths of modern Hong Kong.