Kowloon Walled City Park

The heritage garden of Kowloon Walled City Park in Hong Kong is a world removed from its immediate political zones. Contained within the demolished Chinese exclave of Kowloon Walled City, it served as a crows nest for pirates who infested the nearby waters and also as a military zone for the Quing Dynastry. The Kowloon Walled City Park of Hong Kong has survived eras of political flux to remain Hong Kong's anomalous historic park. The park also houses some of Hong Kong's Heritage buildings.

The Kowloon Walled City Park of Hong Kong is the restored fragments of the infamously anarchic Kowloon Walled City that was demolished in 1993 by both the British and the Chinese in a ‘Joint Declaration' in 1984. The city was first fortified between the years 1843 and 1847 after the region had grown into an important Chinese military garrison. Stone walls were erected, and the fortification had six watch towers to monitor pirate activities and four massive gates. The area enclosed within the fort was 6.5 acres in size. Later, even after the New Territories were handed over to the British on lease in 1889, the Chinese authorities did not evacuate the area, and so they were expelled in 1899. From then on began an era of degradation which was finally halted in 1984 Demolition.

The British and the Chinese, however, did not ignore the historic and cultural propensity of the Kowloon Walled City. Recognizing this potential, the demolishers replaced the destroyed area with a park, whose construction began soon after in the year 1994. The walls of the park that remained were finally pulled down by the Japanese during the 1941 to 1945 occupation of Hong Kong; and the stones were used by them to expand the Kai Tak airfield. The dimensions of these famous walls are said to have been 15 feet wide and 13 feet tall and approximately 2,200 feet long.

The Kowloon Walled City Park in Hong Kong was rebuilt by the August of 1995, and designed to preserving the old Chinese cultural heritage that was prevalent in the area minus the anarchy. The Kowloon Walled City Park of Hong Kong is fashioned like the Jiangnan Garden, and has eight different types of landscape relics within it. They range from the picturesque to the stately and are estimated according to their antique value. These eight attractions of the Kowloon Walled City Park are the Yamen which used to be the administrative headquarters of Kowloon; the Old South Gate which lies in ruins and is remnant of the original south gate of the Kowloon Walled City; the Eight Floral Walks; the Garden of Four Seasons; the Garden of Chinese Zodiac; the Chess Garden which is made up of four giant Chinese chess boards; the Mountain View Pavilion and the Guibi and Fui Sing Pavilion. Aside of these there are some other relics of the original city which include three wells, two cannons and five stone inscriptions among them are two granite plaques with the words “South Gate” and “Kowloon Walled City” inscribed on them.