Britain leased Hong Kong's New Territories for 99 years
On this day · 9 June 1898
A single line in an 1898 convention — "ninety-nine years" — quietly set the clock running on British Hong Kong.
On June 9, 1898, Britain and Qing China signed the Convention for the Extension of Hong Kong Territory in Peking. It leased the New Territories — the land north of Kowloon’s Boundary Street up to the Sham Chun (Shenzhen) River, plus more than 200 islands — to Britain. The term was blunt: “The term of this lease shall be ninety-nine years.”
Unlike Hong Kong Island and Kowloon, which earlier treaties had ceded outright, the New Territories were only borrowed. The arrangement was rent-free and took effect on July 1, 1898.
Ninety-nine years was thought, at the time, to be as good as forever.
It was not. The lease’s looming expiry made the rest of the colony untenable to keep on its own, and in 1984 Britain agreed to hand back the whole of Hong Kong under the Sino-British Joint Declaration. Sovereignty passed to China on July 1, 1997, exactly when the 99-year clock that started in 1898 finally ran out.
Sources & references
2 referencesWell-established. Corroborated by 2 independent sources.
