Java Road () is a street in

North Point North Point is a mixed-use urban area in the Eastern District of Hong Kong. Located in the northeastern part of Hong Kong Island, the area is named after a cape between Causeway Bay and Tsat Tsz Mui that projects toward Kowloon Bay. Loc ...

on Hong Kong Island, Hong Kong. It runs from the junction of

Electric Road An electric road, eroad, or electric road system (ERS) is a road which supplies electric power to vehicles travelling on it. Common implementations are overhead power lines above the road and ground-level power supply through conductive rails or ...

and Tin Chong Street in

Fortress Hill Fortress Hill or Pau Toi Shan () is a hill and an area on the north shore of Hong Kong Island, Hong Kong. Fortress Hill includes the western part of North Point lying west of Oil Street, and the eastern part of Causeway Bay. There are a numb ...

to meet

King's Road King's Road or Kings Road (or sometimes the King's Road, especially when it was the king's private road until 1830, or as a colloquialism by middle/upper class London residents), is a major street stretching through Chelsea and Fulham, both ...

Quarry Bay Quarry Bay is an area beneath Mount Parker in the Eastern District of Hong Kong Island, in Hong Kong. The western portion of the area was also formerly known as Lai Chi (). Traditionally an industrial and residential area, the number of comme ...

, near .

History

Completed in 1933, the road was named after the Dutch shipping firm

Koninklijke Java-China Paketvaart Lijnen Koninklijke Paketvaart-Maatschappij (Dutch for Royal Packet Navigation Company), better known as KPM, was a Dutch shipping company (1888–1966) in the Netherlands East Indies, now Indonesia. It was the dominant inter-island shipping line in Ind ...

(; known outside the Netherlands as Royal Interocean Lines, RIL) — itself named for the island of

Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's mo ...

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

(then

Netherlands East Indies The Dutch East Indies, also known as the Netherlands East Indies ( nl, Nederlands(ch)-Indië; ), was a Dutch colony consisting of what is now Indonesia. It was formed from the nationalised trading posts of the Dutch East India Company, whi ...

) — which had its operational headquarters there for much of the 20th Century. The company provided sea routes between Hong Kong,

Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flowin ...

, Jakarta,

Medan Medan (; English: ) is the capital and largest city of the Indonesian province of North Sumatra, as well as a regional hub and financial centre of Sumatra. According to the National Development Planning Agency, Medan is one of the four ma ...

Surabaya Surabaya ( jv, ꦱꦸꦫꦧꦪ or jv, ꦯꦹꦫꦨꦪ; ; ) is the capital city of the Indonesian province of East Java and the second-largest city in Indonesia, after Jakarta. Located on the northeastern border of Java island, on the Mad ...

Makassar Makassar (, mak, ᨆᨀᨔᨑ, Mangkasara’, ) is the capital of the Indonesian province of South Sulawesi. It is the largest city in the region of Eastern Indonesia and the country's fifth-largest urban center after Jakarta, Surabaya, ...

and elsewhere. The Chinese name of the road was originally . The road name is also associated with the sugar importing empire of (; Kwik Djoen Eng in Hokkien; after whom Chun Yeung Street was named), across whose reclaimed land (between Tin Chong Street and

Tong Shui Road Tong Shui Road ( Chinese: 糖水道) is a road on reclaimed land in North Point on Hong Kong Island. The road runs from Victoria Harbour at its northern end to a T-junction with King's Road in the south. An exit slip road from the Island Eastern Co ...

, the current water's edge and King's Road) it runs. Java was the source of his sugar.Djoen-Eng KWIK (aka KWOK Chun-Yeung / / The Java Sugar King) [1895-1935]
Gwulo There was a Java Road Elementary School near the

North Point Ferry Pier North Point Ferry Pier () is a ferry pier in North Point, Hong Kong and it is near the site of the former North Point Estate North Point Estate () was a public housing estate at the harbour front of North Point, Hong Kong near North Point Fer ...

; it has since closed.

Features

Buildings along the street include: * No. 99. Java Road Municipal Services Building. In the building, there is a market (from G/F to 1/F), the Java Road Cooked Food Centre (2/F), a sports centre with facilities including a basketball court, three squash courts, a dance room, children's soft play room, and an American pool room (from 3/F to 5/F). * No. 222. Customs Headquarters Building * No. 303. ICAC Building * No. 333. North Point Government Offices

References

North Point Roads on Hong Kong Island {{HongKong-road-stub

History

Features

See also

References