Needle Hill or Cham Shan () is a mountain in

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 ...

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 ...

. It has an altitude of 532 m. This is a part of a popular

hiking A hike is a long, vigorous walk, usually on trails or footpaths in the countryside. Walking for pleasure developed in Europe during the eighteenth century. Long hikes as part of a religious pilgrimage have existed for a much longer time. "Hi ...

route including

Grassy Hill Grassy Hill () is the fourteenth highest mountain in Hong Kong. Peaked at 647 m (2,123 ft), it is situated between Tsuen Wan and Tai Po and near Lead Mine Pass. Stage 7 of MacLehose Trail runs near its peak. The summit of the hill is loc ...

and

Tai Mo Shan Tai Mo Shan is the highest peak in Hong Kong, with an elevation of above the , or around above mean sea level. It is located at approximately the geographical centre of the New Territories. The Tai Mo Shan Country Park covers an area of ...

. The mountain got its name due to the resemblance of a needle by its peak. Needle Hill Shing Mun

Geography

At around 400 above sea level, it forms a needle-like shape at its peak. The granitic rocks that form this hill is part of a granitic ridge that starts at the

Tolo Channel Tolo Channel or Chek Mun Hoi Hap () is a Channel (geography), channel south of Plover Cove in Hong Kong connecting Tolo Harbour to Mirs Bay. At Mirs Bay end, it is named North Channel, Hong Kong, North Channel. The Chinese name ''Chek Mun'' mean ...

and ends in

Kwai Chung Kwai Chung is an urban area within Tsuen Wan New Town in the New Territories of Hong Kong. Together with Tsing Yi Island, it is part of the Kwai Tsing District of Hong Kong. It is also part of Tsuen Wan New Town. In 2000, it had a popula ...

. Needle Hill is located within

Shing Mun Country Park The Shing Mun Country Park (established 24 June 1977) is a country park of Hong Kong, hugging the Shing Mun Reservoir. Location Located in the central New Territories, it covers a total of . It extends from Lead Mine Pass in the north, to the ...

. Stage 7 of the

MacLehose Trail The MacLehose Trail is a 100-kilometre hiking trail that crosses much of the New Territories, Hong Kong, starting from Pak Tam Chung, Sai Kung District in the east to Tuen Mun Town, Tuen Mun District in the west. It is the longest trail in Hong ...

includes the summit of Needle Hill. The

Shing Mun Tunnels The Shing Mun Tunnels are a system of tunnels and viaducts in the New Territories, Hong Kong connecting the new towns of Tsuen Wan to the west and Sha Tin to the east. They are a part of Route 9 and the Tsuen Wan entrance is the reset point ( ...

pass through the base of Needle Hill. The Lower

Shing Mun River The Shing Mun River (Chinese: 城門河) or Shing Mun River Channel (Chinese: 城門河道) is a river in Sha Tin, Hong Kong. History The original Shing Mun River began at Needle Hill, and flowed into the former Tide Cove (Sha Tin Hoi), a sh ...

can also be found at the base of the hill.

Geology

Needle Hill is mainly composed of

granite Granite ( ) is a coarse-grained (phanerite, phaneritic) intrusive rock, intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly coo ...

Wolframite Wolframite is an iron, manganese, and tungstate mineral with a chemical formula of that is the intermediate mineral between ferberite ( rich) and hübnerite ( rich). Along with scheelite, the wolframite series are the most important tungsten ...

molybdenite Molybdenite is a mineral of molybdenum disulfide, Mo S2. Similar in appearance and feel to graphite, molybdenite has a lubricating effect that is a consequence of its layered structure. The atomic structure consists of a sheet of molybdenum at ...

and

quartz Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica (silicon dioxide). The Atom, atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon–oxygen Tetrahedral molecular geometry, tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tet ...

ores can be found at the base of the hill.

History

Wolframite, a

tungsten Tungsten (also called wolfram) is a chemical element; it has symbol W and atomic number 74. It is a metal found naturally on Earth almost exclusively in compounds with other elements. It was identified as a distinct element in 1781 and first ...

ore, was discovered at Needle Hill in 1935. It was mined there from 1938 to 1967. The mines used to obtain wolframite ores are now abandoned.

References

External links

Needle Hill Tungsten Mine
at industrialhistoryhk.org
Needle Hill Tungsten Mine
at gwulo.com {{coord, 22.387089, 114.160486, display=title Sha Tin District Mountains, peaks and hills of Hong Kong

Geography

Geology

History

See also

References

External links