Kowloon Walled City: A Case of Land Administration of a Disputed Territory

Abstract

Informed by hitherto unreported archival materials and the relevant literature, this short paper employs a case study of the post-war Hong Kong Government’s administration of the so-called Kowloon Walled City to elucidate two fundamental principles of land administration in the use of land: (a) certitude of land boundaries and (b) public health and safety. Land administration of this densely populated and growing habitat, being a territory under disputed colonial jurisdiction, was characterised by the meticulous enforcement of an officially adopted boundary and the implementation of a site and service approach for a high-rise settlement by the Colonial Hong Kong Government.