A Study On The History Of Hong Kong Early-modern City Planning Before 1945

Hong Kong, which is famous as the city of 'Pearl of the Orient', used to be a fishing village before. Due to the introduction of the English colonial urban planning system, it rapidly evolved into an international trade, economy and finance center just in a century and a half. It writes a brilliant chapter in the history of early-modern urban planning in China even the world.This article focuses on the history of early-modern urban planning in Hong Kong during 1841-1945, on the view of urban planning history research. Considering the variable background of the international politics and economy, it reviews the development of the urban planning, the content of the urban planning practices, and the evolvement of city planning administrative department, by the way of document studies, field survey, statistical analysis and comparative analysis. Then the historical stages can be inferred. It also refines the elements which effect the development of the early-modern urban planning in Hong Kong and concludes its characteristics. This article takes Hong Kong as a special case of the early-modern urban planning to discuss the historical status and the present revelation in China.This article consists of seven chapters. The first chapter introduces the origin, the object and the significance, the present research condition about this study domestic and overseas, the method, the research framework, the main conclusion and the innovations. The second chapter refers the geography characteristics of Hong Kong, the history before and after occupying it as colony, and then discusses the background which is influential to the formation of the early-modern city of Hong Kong. The third chapter analyzes the 'early-modern' period of the urban planning in Hong Kong in the context of colonial system of economy and politics, as well as establishing the historical stages of early-modern urban planning in Hong Kong. The fourth and the fifth chapter are the main parts of this article, which illuminate the content and the features of the early-modern urban planning in Hong Kong according to the historical stages. The sixth chapter concludes the characteristics of the early-modern urban planning in Hong Kong in this period by analyzing the theories and methods of urban planning. It also compares Hong Kong with the other similar cities. The seventh chapter as the conclusion sums this article up by evaluating the history of early-modern urban planning in Hong Kong, and previews the direction of the subsequent research.