Chek Lap Kok is an

island An island or isle is a piece of land, distinct from a continent, completely surrounded by water. There are continental islands, which were formed by being split from a continent by plate tectonics, and oceanic islands, which have never been ...

in the western waters of

Hong Kong Hong Kong)., Legally Hong Kong, China in international treaties and organizations. is a special administrative region of China. With 7.5 million residents in a territory, Hong Kong is the fourth most densely populated region in the wor ...

New Territories The New Territories (N.T., Traditional Chinese characters, Chinese: ) is one of the three areas of Hong Kong, alongside Hong Kong Island and Kowloon. It makes up 86.2% of Hong Kong's territory, and contains around half of the population of H ...

. Unlike the smaller Lam Chau, it was only partially leveled when it was assimilated via

land reclamation Land reclamation, often known as reclamation, and also known as land fill (not to be confused with a waste landfill), is the process of creating new Terrestrial ecoregion, land from oceans, list of seas, seas, Stream bed, riverbeds or lake ...

into the island for the current Hong Kong International Airport, which opened for commercial aviation in 1998. The airport is popularly referred to as ''Chek Lap Kok Airport'' to distinguish it from the former Hong Kong International Airport, now commonly known as Kai Tak Airport. Hong Kong SkyCity, a business and entertainment complex, is also located on Chek Lap Kok. It includes AsiaWorld–Expo, a convention and exhibition centre, which opened in 2005.

Cathay Pacific City Cathay Pacific City (), often referred as Cathay City, is the headquarters of Cathay Pacific, Hong Kong's flag carrier, flag-carrying airline. It is located at Hong Kong International Airport, on the south side. History The airline built Cathay ...

, the head office of

Cathay Pacific Cathay Pacific Airways Limited, or simply Cathay Pacific, is the flag carrier of Hong Kong, with its head office and main airline hub, hub located at Hong Kong International Airport. The airline's operations and its subsidiaries have schedule ...

; HAECO, and formerly Hong Kong Airlines are also located on the airport platform.

Name

The name of the island may be derived from the bareness of the island ('da chek lak'), that the shape of the island resembles the Pagrus ('chek lap', ), or that the fish was once abundant in its vicinity.

Geography

The island is located north of Lantau Island off Ma Wan Chung and Tung Chung. Before the building of the airport platform, it was a small and hilly island, about long, with an area of (other sources mention ). The southern end of the island formed a small peninsula, which has been left largely undeveloped. This area is facing Tung Chung and is now named Scenic Hill. It is the site of the Ancient Kiln Park and the Airport Island Angle Station of the Ngong Ping 360 cable car.

History

The island has been inhabited on and off since the

Middle Neolithic The Neolithic or New Stone Age (from Greek 'new' and 'stone') is an archaeological period, the final division of the Stone Age in Mesopotamia, Asia, Europe and Africa (c. 10,000 BCE to c. 2,000 BCE). It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wi ...

period 6,000 years ago. During the 19th and 20th centuries, the inhabitants of the island practiced farming, including rice cultivation, and quarrying. At the time of the 1911 census, the population of Chek Lap Kok was 77. The number of males was 55. The population was about 200 in the 1950s, rising sharply in the 1960s. The population later declined, with some 20 families remaining on the island when the plan for the construction of a new airport was announced in the early 1990s. Archeological surveys and investigations were conducted on the island starting in the late 1970s. A salvage archaeology project started in October 1990. The original farming and fishing villages on the island were relocated to Chek Lap Kok New Village aka. Chek Lap Kok San Tsuen () near Tung Chung on Lantau Island. A Tin Hau Temple had been built in 1823 at the north east of the island. The entire temple was built of granite quarried on the island. It was dismantled in 1991 and rebuilt in 1994 at its present location. Chek Lap Kok San Tsuen is a recognized village under the

Small House Policy The Small House Policy (SHP, ) was introduced in 1972 in Hong Kong. The objective was to improve the then prevailing low standard of housing in the rural areas of the New Territories. The policy allows an indigenous male villager who is 18 ye ...

. Also, Romer's tree frog (''Philautus romeri''), a unique

species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...

of finger-sized

frog A frog is any member of a diverse and largely semiaquatic group of short-bodied, tailless amphibian vertebrates composing the order (biology), order Anura (coming from the Ancient Greek , literally 'without tail'). Frog species with rough ski ...

found only in Hong Kong, was relocated from Chek Lap Kok to new

habitat In ecology, habitat refers to the array of resources, biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species' habitat can be seen as the physical manifestation of its ...

s on Lantau Island before construction of the airport. A third runway at Hong Kong Airport is being built as part of the Hong Kong International Airport Master Plan 2030. File:20091002 Hong Kong Ngong Ping 360 Skyrail 6420.jpg, View of the Airport Island Angle Station of the Ngong Ping 360 cable car system built on Scenic Hill, the unlevelled peninsula in the south of Chek Lap Kok. File:Scenic_Hill_Pavilion.jpg, Scenic Hill Pavilion File:HK ChepLapKokTinHauTemple.JPG, Rebuilt Tin Hau Temple in the new Chek Lap Kok Village.

Climate

Education

Most of Lantau Island, including Chek Lap Kok New Village, is in Primary One Admission (POA) School Net 98, which contains multiple aided schools on Lantau Island; no government primary schools are in this net.

References

External links

Delineation of area of existing village Chek Lap Kok (Tung Chung) for election of resident representative (2019 to 2022)
(Chek Lap Kok New Village) {{HKIA Artificial islands of Hong Kong Islands District Restricted areas of Hong Kong red public minibus Islands of Hong Kong Populated places in Hong Kong