Digital Resources 

 

Hong Kong History

 

Databases:

• Basic Law Drafting History Online
• FCO 40, The National Archives, UK
• Historical Laws of Hong Kong Online
• Hong Kong and the West until 1860
• Hong Kong Government Reports Online (1842-1941)
• Hong Kong Journals Online
• Hong Kong Newspaper Clippings Online 
• Hong Kong’s War Crimes Trials Collection
• The Last Governor Online 
• Luke Him Sau Architectural Collection
• Pre-1950 Hong Kong e-books
• South China Morning Post (1903-1941) 
• South China Morning Post (1946-current) 
• WisersOne (formerly WiseNews) 

Open Access Links:

• Global Hong Kong Studies, University of California
• GovHK Fact Sheets 香港便覽
• Gwulo: Old Hong Kong [Live site] [Archived site*] website on Hong Kong history and photos maintained by David Bellis
• Hong Kong Annual Report 香港年報 government yearbook
• Hong Kong History Centre  University of Bristol, UK
• Hong Kong in Transition 1995 – 2020 (photographic collections) by Honorary Professor David Clarke, Department of History Arts History
• Hong Kong Listed Company Information provided by HKEx
• Hong Kong Memory 香港記憶 multimedia website on HK’s history, culture and heritage
• Hong Kong Ordinances 香港條例 provided by Hong Kong Legal Information Institute
• Hong Kong Studies Initiative University of British Columbia, Canada
• Hong Kong Regulations 香港附屬法例 provided by Hong Kong Legal Information Institute
• The Industrial History of Hong Kong Group  [Live site] [Archived site*] founded by Hugh Farmer to preserve and share information about Hong Kong’s fast disappearing industrial heritage
• Old Images of Hong Kong taken from the Foreign & Commonwealth Office photographic collection (CO 1069), posted on Flickr by the National Archives
• Richard Charles Lee Hong Kong Studies CentreUniversity of Toronto, Canada
• 香港文學資料庫 provided by the Chinese University of Hong Kong Library
• 香港舊報紙 provided by  Hong Kong Public Libraries

* Special Collections has cooperated with the website owners to create archived copies of these websites using Archive-It. This provides an important backup in case the website is lost or damaged, ensuring the website's content will continue to be available for future researchers.

 

Hong Kong Journals Online (HKJO) is a full-text image database providing access to selected academic and professional journals, both in English and Chinese, published in Hong Kong. Titles included in this database cover a wide range of disciplines including law, medicine and education. Issues included in this database vary from journal to journal with the earliest going back to 1872. Currently, more than 491,290 images from over 60 titles are accessible via the database. New issues of the titles will also be added as soon as being received. Scholars doing research on Hong Kong will find this an invaluable resource.
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/hkjo

Hong Kong Government Reports Online (HKGRO) is a full-text image database providing online access to pre-World War II issues of five major colonial government publications, namely, Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Sessional Papers, Hong Kong Hansard, Hong Kong Government Gazette and Hong Kong Blue Book. The five publications contain a wide range of information, such as official notifications, proceedings of the Legislative Council, statistics, and reports of government departments and special committees, which are essential to students and scholars in conducting research on Hong Kong.
http://hkgro.lib.hku.hk/
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/hkgro 

The database is to provide online access and retrieval to a variety of valuable information, including sketches, maps, and accounts of western visitors and settlers about early Hong Kong, which are scattered in rare titles located in Special Collections and Fung Ping Shan Library of the University of Hong Kong Libraries.
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/hkwest/

This is an online resource providing information and materials from the drafting history of Hong Kong’s constitution, The Basic Law of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China. Four databases are currently available for free public access: Drafting Materials, News Coverage, Legco Database, and Textual History.
http://sunzi.lib.hku.hk/bldho/home.action

The Historical Laws of Hong Kong Online is a full-text image database providing access to past revised editions of Hong Kong Laws. The database comprises a total of seven consolidations of the laws of Hong Kong: 1890, 1901, 1912, 1923, 1937, 1950, and 1964 (last updated to 1989).
http://oelawhk.lib.hku.hk/exhibits/show/oelawhk/home

The HKWCT Collection is part of a project funded by the Hong Kong SAR government’s Research Grant Council. The Collection’s website provides details of, and access to, the case files of 46 trials involving 123 persons who were tried in Hong Kong for war crimes committed during the Second World War.
http://hkwctc.lib.hku.hk/exhibits/show/hkwctc/home

The University of Hong Kong Libraries has created this online database from "Patten, The Last Governor" materials donated to them by Dr. William M.W. Mong. These materials record and document the political life of Christopher Patten, the last British governor of Hong Kong, beginning with an interview in 1992, and ending with his last speech to the Hong Kong Legislative Council (Legco) on 2 October 1996.
http://lastgov.lib.hku.hk.eproxy.lib.hku.hk/last_governor/

The University of Hong Kong Libraries has created this full-text image database from the original set of newspaper clippings compiled for the Department of Political Science by Dr. Norman Miners. The database comprises more than 150,000 images covering the early 1970s to 1994. Most of the topics are related to politics and government in Hong Kong and materials were primarily gathered from the South China Morning Post and the Hong Kong Standard.
http://hknews.lib.hku.hk.eproxy.lib.hku.hk/newspaper/index.jsp

Luke Him Sau was regarded as a key member of the first generation of Chinese architects. This Collection chiefly consists of architectural drawings created by Hong Kong architect Mr. Luke Him Sau (陸謙受) and his various business and personal records. There are some 950 pieces of architectural drawings, dated approximately from 1948 to 1968, of building projects in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Macau and Taiwan. For business and personal records, they include work diaries, professional certificates, lecture notes, office records and poems of Luke Him Sau. Digital images of most architectural drawings, business and personal records are accessible through browse and search functions.

http://lhsarc.lib.hku.hk/exhibits/show/lhsarc/home
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/lhsac 

Special Collections houses rare and unique Hong Kong materials which go back to the mid 19th century. To preserve these rare materials, books published before 1950 and are out-of-copyright have been selected for digitisation. There are now over 250 volumes available for public online access, including both English and Chinese materials and some colonial government publications. For lists of book titles, see English publications and Chinese publications for reference.