Hong Kong has been officially recorded in history since the Qin Dynasty. It played an important role in the cultural exchange and commercial trade between China and the West during the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Since the Opium War, Hong Kong was gradually ceded to Britain and became a British colony through various unequal treaties.
On 1st July 1997, Hong Kong returned to the Motherland, and became a Special Administrative Region of China. After the Handover, Hong Kong implemented the national policy of “One Country, Two Systems”, and the whole region prospered and developed rapidly, becoming a highly prosperous free port and an international metropolis. Hong Kong also ranks third among the first-tier cities in the world by GaWC.