The Yau Ma Tei Fruit Market, officially Yau Ma Tei Wholesale Fruit Market, also simply known as the Fruit Market, is a wholesale fruit market in

Yau Ma Tei Yau Ma Tei is an area in the Yau Tsim Mong District in the south of the Kowloon Peninsula in Hong Kong. Name ''Yau Ma Tei'' is a phonetic transliteration of the name (originally written as ) in Cantonese. It can also be spelt as Yaumatei, Y ...

Kowloon Kowloon () is one of the areas of Hong Kong, three areas of Hong Kong, along with Hong Kong Island and the New Territories. It is an urban area comprising the Kowloon Peninsula and New Kowloon. It has a population of 2,019,533 and a populat ...

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 ...

Etymology

It is known as ''gwo laan'' () in Cantonese. ''gwo'' () means fruit while ''laan'' () means wholesale market, derived from railing and enclosed area.

History

The market was founded in 1913 between Ferry Street, Waterloo Road and

Reclamation Street Reclamation Street (Traditional Chinese characters, Chinese: 新填地街) is a street stretching from Jordan, Hong Kong, Jordan to Mong Kok, Kowloon, Hong Kong. As its name suggests, it was built on the land reclamation in Hong Kong, reclaime ...

with Shek Lung Street passing through it. The name of the market was originally Government Vegetables Market () which sold fruit and vegetables. Fish traders joined in the 1930s. With the opening of Cheung Sha Wan Vegetables Wholesaling Market () and Cheung Sha Wan Fishery Wholesaling Market () in

Cheung Sha Wan Cheung Sha Wan () is an area between Lai Chi Kok and Sham Shui Po in New Kowloon, Hong Kong. It is mainly residential to the north and south, with an industrial area in between. Administratively it is part of Sham Shui Po District, which al ...

in 1965, the vegetables and fish stalls moved out. From then on the market has operated as a specialist fruit wholesaling market.Brief Information on Proposed Grade II Items. See pp 115-116
/ref> The market was then officially known as Kowloon Wholesale Fruit Market until the name was transferred to Cheung Sha Wan Wholesale Market Complex in 1990. Yau Ma Tei Wholesale Fruit Market view1 202005.jpg, Detail of a building along Reclamation Street Yau Ma Tei Fruit Market (Hong Kong).jpg, Yau Ma Tei Fruit Market, along Waterloo Road Shek Lung Street 202005.jpg, Fruit Stand

Features

The market is a historically valuable site and is classified as a Grade II Historic Building since 2009.''List of the 1,444 Historic Buildings with Assessment Results (as at 22 March 2018)'', see No. 271, online
aab.gov.hk/...
/ref> It consists of several blocks of one or two storey brick and stone buildings. Pre-

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

signboards are on the outer walls of the buildings. Another historical building, Yau Ma Tei Theatre is adjacent to the market, across Reclamation Street.

Market operation

Yau Ma Tei Fruit Market at night 20231214

Many wholesalers still operate in the market. The busiest hours are 4 to 6 o'clock in the morning. Lorries and carts deliver boxes of fruit in and out of the market.

Transportation

Yau Ma Tei station Yau Ma Tei, formerly named Waterloo after Waterloo Road, is an MTR station located in Yau Ma Tei, Kowloon. It lays straightly like a long box under thoroughfare Nathan Road, ending north under Pitt Street and south near Man Ming Lane. It ...

Exit B2 * KMB Route 10 and Citybus Route 20

In popular culture

Yau Ma Tei Fruit Market is used as a backdrop for 2018

TVB Television Broadcasts Limited (TVB; zh, t=電視廣播有限公司) is a television broadcasting company based in Hong Kong. The company operates five free-to-air terrestrial television channels in Hong Kong, with TVB Jade as its main Canton ...

drama series '' Apple-Colada''.