Living in a vertical city: Hong Kong

Hong Kong has lots of steep, green hills.

There is not much flat land. Many people live close together in tall buildings. A tall tower fits many homes on a small piece of ground.

Most of Hong Kong is hills and mountains. Its highest peak, Tai Mo Shan, rises to 957 meters, and Victoria Peak towers over the harbor at 552 meters. Flat land, such as river valleys and land built out into the sea, covers less than a fifth of the territory.

Hong Kong's government says built-up areas, the city's towns and new towns, cover only about 25 percent of its land. Most of the rest is country parks and nature areas. The government calls Hong Kong a compact, high-density city. Britannica puts its density at about 6,800 people per square kilometer (2026), one of the most densely populated places in the world.

Britannica describes a partially submerged, dissected upland rising abruptly to over 900 m, its ridges running northeast to southwest from Tai Mo Shan (957 m) to Lantau Peak (934 m); Victoria Peak (552 m) and Mount Parker shelter the harbor. Lowlands, including floodplains, river valleys and reclaimed land, occupy less than one-fifth of the land, and the urban area on both sides of the harbor occupies only about a tenth of the level area, extended by ongoing reclamation.

The Development Bureau states that built-up areas, including the urban areas and new towns, take up only 25 percent of Hong Kong's land and will rise to about 30 percent once the Hong Kong 2030+ strategy is fully realized, with the vast majority of the remaining land within country parks and other conservation areas. The bureau describes the aim as developing Hong Kong's compact, high-density city into a more livable one, making optimal use of limited land.

Many families in Hong Kong live in flats.

A flat is a home on one floor of a big building. Some buildings have many, many floors. Lots of families live in one building.

Most people in Hong Kong live in flats, or apartments, inside residential buildings. Some flats are owned or rented privately, and many are public housing built by the government.

In 2024, about 44.7 percent of Hong Kong's people lived in public housing: 29.4 percent in public rental flats and 15.3 percent in flats sold at subsidized prices. About 54.6 percent lived in private housing. By March 2025, Hong Kong had about 1.33 million public housing flats.

The Hong Kong Housing Authority's Housing in Figures 2025 gives the population by type of housing in 2024: public housing 44.7 percent, made up of 29.4 percent in public rental housing and 15.3 percent in subsidized sale flats; private housing 54.6 percent; and temporary housing 0.7 percent. The shares have barely moved in a decade: public rental housing held 29.2 percent in 2014.

Most people in the Housing Authority's public housing live in the New Territories. In 2024, 57.8 percent of the population in the Housing Authority's public housing lived in the New Territories, 33.8 percent in Kowloon and 8.4 percent on Hong Kong Island. The public rental stock stood at about 871,000 flats, within some 1.33 million public housing flats, as of March 2025.

Some Hong Kong streets are very steep.

So the city built a long chain of escalators up one hill! In the morning they go down. Later in the day they go up.

On Hong Kong Island, the streets climb steeply from Central, near the harbor, up to the Mid-Levels, on the slopes below Victoria Peak. In 1993, the city opened the Central to Mid-Levels Escalator and Walkway System, a covered chain of 16 escalators and 3 moving walkways.

It runs from Queen's Road Central up to Conduit Road. Each morning, from 6 to 10 a.m., it runs downhill. From 10 a.m. to midnight it runs uphill. In late 2024, people made about 99,000 trips on it every day.

The Transport Department describes the Central to Mid-Levels Escalator and Walkway System, opened in 1993, as covered walkways with 16 reversible one-way escalators and 3 reversible one-way travelators, starting at Queen's Road Central, passing through narrow streets and ending at Conduit Road. It runs one-way downhill from 6:00 to 10:00 a.m. and uphill from 10:00 a.m. to midnight.

The system carried about 99,000 pedestrian trips a day in late 2024 and is managed by the Electrical and Mechanical Services Department.

Hong Kong has lots of water.

Ferries cross the harbor. Trains carry people all over the city. Millions of people ride the trains every day.

Victoria Harbour separates Hong Kong Island from Kowloon. The Star Ferry carries commuters between them, and its company calls the crossing an inexpensive, reliable part of the city's transport.

Most long trips are by train. In 2025, the MTR railway and its buses carried about 1.96 billion passengers, an average of 5.71 million on each weekday. The MTR carries about half of all passengers on Hong Kong's main public transport.

Victoria Harbour divides the two halves of the urban area. The Star Ferry describes its crossings between Hong Kong Island and Kowloon as an important part of the commuter system, inexpensive and reliable, and in 2026 it invited tenders to build an electric ferry.

Rail carries most journeys. MTR Corporation reports 1,958.5 million passengers on its rail and bus services in 2025, with average weekday patronage of 5.71 million, 4.71 million of them on domestic services. Its share of the franchised public transport market was 50.2 percent, and it carried 72.9 percent of cross-harbor traffic.

Hong Kong is not all buildings.

Big green parks cover many of its hills. The hills are very steep. From the top, you can see the towers far below.

Much of Hong Kong is green. Most of the land that is not built up is country parks and other areas protected for nature, and the government plans to keep it that way as the city grows.

Steep hills rise behind the towers. Tai Mo Shan, the highest peak, reaches 957 meters, and Lantau Peak, on Lantau Island, 934 meters. Hong Kong also has about 230 islands around its coast.

The Development Bureau's goal is to strike a balance between development and conservation, keeping the vast majority of non-built-up land within country parks and other nature conservation areas even as built-up land grows from about 25 to about 30 percent under Hong Kong 2030+.

Britannica notes that Hong Kong's soils are generally acidic and of low fertility, except for alluvial soils around Deep Bay where rice and, later, vegetables have been farmed, and that hill soils develop a rich topsoil under forest but become thin and nutrient-poor when exposed, suffering severe sheet and gully erosion.