Flag of Hong Kong. China province
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

No, Hong Kong is not a country. Hong Kong is a special administrative region of China. Hong Kong’s status as a special administrative region stems from its history as a former British colony.

Aerial view of Hong Kong Island as seen from Victoria Peak. (photo dated 2016)
© Cherdchanok/Shutterstock.com

By way of treaty or lease with China, the islands and mainland area now known as Hong Kong came under the control of Great Britain at various points in the 19th century. From that time until its transfer back to China in the late 20th century, Hong Kong developed on a different trajectory, both politically and economically, than mainland China—which, in contrast to Hong Kong’s status as a British colony, began that period with its imperial dynasty in decline and ended it as a republic under communist rule.

Spurred by the pending expiration of a 99-year lease (1898–1997) for part of the territory, the 1984 Chinese-British joint declaration paved the way for all of Hong Kong to be returned to China. The handover occurred on July 1, 1997, at which point the Basic Law of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region took effect. The Basic Law outlined the concept of “one country, two systems,” under which Hong Kong, though now part of China, was allowed to maintain its capitalist economy and to retain a large degree of political autonomy (except in matters of foreign policy and defense) for a period of 50 years.

Time zone map with standard time zones and International Date Line
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Ideally, time zones would be slices of Earth’s surface 15 degrees of longitude wide that keep the same time. However, some countries and parts of countries have decided that being within a specific time zone is not preferable and have chosen offsets of 30 minutes or even 45 minutes. Why?

Consider the way things worked before time zones: cities kept time by the Sun, which meant cities that were 1 degree of longitude apart had times that differed by 4 minutes. If a time zone is 15 degrees of longitude wide, then places at the edge of the zone would have a solar time 30 minutes different from places at the center of the zone.

For example, the Canadian island of Newfoundland sits within the time zone 4 hours behind UTC (Coordinated Universal Time), the time at 0 degrees longitude in Greenwich, England. However, Newfoundland is 3.5 hours behind UTC. When time zones were introduced in the late 19th century, Newfoundlanders chose their 30-minute offset because that was close to the local solar time in St. John’s, the city where most Newfoundlanders lived. (St. John’s is at 52.7 degrees west longitude, and 3.5 hours of solar time west of UTC is at 52.5 degrees of longitude.)

Similar situations happened in Iran and Afghanistan, where the capitals Tehran and Kabul, respectively, are located 3.5 and 4.5 hours east of UTC. Kathmandu, Nepal’s capital, is located near 5 hours and 45 minutes of solar time east of UTC, so Nepal chose that time for its time zone. India has a single time zone, which is 5.5 hours ahead of UTC. That corresponds to the time at Prayagraj (Allahabad), which was chosen as the central meridian for India under British rule.