Ngau Tau Kok
Encyclopedia
Kowloon
Kowloon is an urban area in Hong Kong comprising the Kowloon Peninsula and New Kowloon. It is bordered by the Lei Yue Mun strait in the east, Mei Foo Sun Chuen and Stonecutter's Island in the west, Tate's Cairn and Lion Rock in the north, and Victoria Harbour in the south. It had a population of...
, Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
, located at the northern part of Kwun Tong District
Kwun Tong District
Kwun Tong is one of the 18 districts of Hong Kong. It is located in Kowloon. It had a population of 562,427 in 2001. The district has the third highest population while the income is below average....
, next to Kowloon Bay
Kowloon Bay
Kowloon Bay is a bay located at the east of the Kowloon Peninsula and north of Hong Kong Island in Hong Kong. It is the eastern portion of Victoria Harbour, between Hung Hom and Lei Yue Mun...
. It covers Jordan Valley, Ngau Tau Kok and Upper Kwun Tong
Kwun Tong
Kwun Tong is an area in Kwun Tong District, situated at the eastern part of the Kowloon Peninsula, and its boundary stretches from Lion Rock in the north to Lei Yue Mun in the south, and from the winding paths of Kowloon Peak in the east to the north coast of the former Kai Tak Airport runway in...
town centre. The population of Ngau Tau Kok exceeds 210,000. It is one of the major residential areas in Kwun Tong District.
Geography
In Chinese, Ngau Tau Kok means ox horn: before the reclamation of Kowloon Bay, the coastline of Ngau Tau Kok was shaped like an ox horn. Ngau Tau Kok includes two hills - Jordan Valley (Shum Wan Shan) and Crocodile Hill (Lok Yue Shan), where around half of the residential blocks are located.Features
Ngau Tau Kok is a residential area close to the town centre of Kwun Tong District. The area around Lower Ngau Tau Kok Estate is known for its street foodStreet food
Street food is ready-to-eat food or drink sold in a street or other public place, such as a market or fair, by a hawker or vendor, often from a portable stall. While some street foods are regional, many are not, having spread beyond their region of origin. Most street food are both finger and fast...
, including congee
Congee
Congee is a type of rice porridge popular in many Asian countries. It can be eaten alone or served with a side dish. Names for congee are as varied as the style of its preparation...
, noodle
Noodle
The noodle is a type of food, made from any of a variety of doughs, formed into long thin ribbons, strips, curly-cues, waves, helices, pipes, tubes, strings, or other various shapes, sometimes folded. They are usually cooked in a mixture of boiling water and/or oil. Depending upon the type, noodles...
s and other traditional Cantonese cuisine
Cantonese cuisine
Cantonese cuisine comes from Guangdong Province in southern China and is one of 8 superdivisions of Chinese cuisine. Its prominence outside China is due to the great numbers of early emigrants from Guangdong. Cantonese chefs are highly sought after throughout the country...
. In summer, Ngau Tau Kok hosts many religious ceremonies to cerebrate the Yu-lan festival, a festival from Chinese ghost tales.
History
Ngau Tau Kok has a long history of HakkaHakka people
The Hakka , sometimes Hakka Han, are Han Chinese who speak the Hakka language and have links to the provincial areas of Guangdong, Jiangxi, Guangxi, Sichuan, Hunan and Fujian in China....
inhabitants. In the early colonial days of Hong Kong, it was one of the four hills of Kowloon (九龍四山) in eastern Kowloon where granite
Granite
Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...
was extracted. The granite from Ngau Tau Kok was transported to Victoria City on Hong Kong Island
Hong Kong Island
Hong Kong Island is an island in the southern part of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. It has a population of 1,289,500 and its population density is 16,390/km², as of 2008...
across Victoria Harbour
Victoria Harbour
Victoria Harbour is a natural landform harbour situated between Hong Kong Island and the Kowloon Peninsula in Hong Kong. The harbour's deep, sheltered waters and strategic location on the South China Sea were instrumental in Hong Kong's establishment as a British colony and its subsequent...
. Some stone was even exported to Canton City
Guangzhou
Guangzhou , known historically as Canton or Kwangchow, is the capital and largest city of the Guangdong province in the People's Republic of China. Located in southern China on the Pearl River, about north-northwest of Hong Kong, Guangzhou is a key national transportation hub and trading port...
.
Before being a residential area, Ngau Tau Kok was an industrial area. Amoy Food sited a factory in Ngau Tau Kok to manufacture soy sauce
Soy sauce
Soy sauce is a condiment produced by fermenting soybeans with Aspergillus oryzae or Aspergillus sojae molds, along with water and salt...
. A high-density private housing estate, Amoy Gardens
Amoy Gardens
Amoy Gardens is a high-density middle-class private housing estate in Hong Kong completed from 1981 to 1987...
was constructed on the factory site.
A reservoir in Jordan Valley formerly provided fresh water to Ngau Tau Kok but is now disused and used as a landfill
Landfill
A landfill site , is a site for the disposal of waste materials by burial and is the oldest form of waste treatment...
area. An artillery battery
Artillery battery
In military organizations, an artillery battery is a unit of guns, mortars, rockets or missiles so grouped in order to facilitate better battlefield communication and command and control, as well as to provide dispersion for its constituent gunnery crews and their systems...
was also located in Jordon Valley but it was removed to make way for the urban development project.
The site of the MTR
MTR
Mass Transit Railway is the rapid transit railway system in Hong Kong. Originally opened in 1979, the system now includes 211.6 km of rail with 155 stations, including 86 railway stations and 69 light rail stops...
Kowloon Bay Depot
Train station
A train station, also called a railroad station or railway station and often shortened to just station,"Station" is commonly understood to mean "train station" unless otherwise qualified. This is evident from dictionary entries e.g...
was formerly the Ngau Tau Kok Industrial Estate.
SARS outbreak
During the spring of 2003, Ngau Tau Kok was severely impacted by the SARSSevere acute respiratory syndrome
Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome is a respiratory disease in humans which is caused by the SARS coronavirus . Between November 2002 and July 2003 an outbreak of SARS in Hong Kong nearly became a pandemic, with 8,422 cases and 916 deaths worldwide according to the WHO...
outbreak. A concentration of cases of the deadly disease occurred in Amoy Gardens
Amoy Gardens
Amoy Gardens is a high-density middle-class private housing estate in Hong Kong completed from 1981 to 1987...
(淘大花園) (since renamed), mainly in its Block E. The drainage design (which was widely used across Hong Kong) was later criticised and amended.
Town Gas explosion
On 11 April 2006, a fatal underground explosion occurred in Ngau Tau Kok Road and Jordan Valley North Road: two people died and eight were injured. Wai King Building (偉景樓) was seriously damaged by the blast which was caused by leakage of town gas from underground pipes belonging to Hong Kong and China GasThe Hong Kong and China Gas Company Limited
The Hong Kong and China Gas Company Limited , commonly known as Towngas, is the sole provider of towngas in Hong Kong. Founded in 1862, it is one of the oldest listed companies in the territory....
, a major local utility.
Transport
Major roads in Ngau Tau Kok include:- Choi Ha Road
- Chun Wah Road
- Elegance Road
- Kung Lok RoadKung Lok RoadKung Lok Road is a road in Kwun Tong. It is a circular road and both ends of the road connects with Hong Ning Road. The area along the road is primarily residential and is considered the mid-levels of Kwun Tong....
- Ngau Tau Kok Road
- Shun Lee Tsuen Road
A MTR
MTR
Mass Transit Railway is the rapid transit railway system in Hong Kong. Originally opened in 1979, the system now includes 211.6 km of rail with 155 stations, including 86 railway stations and 69 light rail stops...
station
Metro station
A metro station or subway station is a railway station for a rapid transit system, often known by names such as "metro", "underground" and "subway". It is often underground or elevated. At crossings of metro lines, they are multi-level....
in the northern part of Ngau Tau Kok is named Kowloon Bay
Kowloon Bay (MTR)
Kowloon Bay is a station on the Hong Kong MTR Kwun Tong Line. The headquarters of the MTR Corporation Limited and the depot for the Kwun Tong Line are both located at this station. It is between Choi Hung station and Ngau Tau Kok station. The station was opened in 1979.Kowloon Bay is one of...
; the Ngau Tau Kok MTR station
Ngau Tau Kok (MTR)
Ngau Tau Kok is a station on the Hong Kong MTR Kwun Tong Line. It is located in the Ngau Tau Kok area, between Kwun Tong and Kowloon Bay stations. It was opened in 1979....
is located in the southern part of Ngau Tau Kok. Both stations are on the Kwun Tong Line.