Welcome to Gwulo

Here you'll find over 50,000 pages about old Hong Kong to explore, including over 30,000 photos. The content is added by a friendly community of people who enjoy sharing what we know about Hong Kong's history, and you are very welcome to join us.

Kind regards, David

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A timeline for Hong Kong's buildings

Submitted by David on Thu, 08/20/2009 - 22:07

This new feature helps you see how a given location has changed over time.

How to use it

To try it out, please start with the Place for the current HSBC building in Central.

On the right of the screen you'll see a new menu item 'Previously at this location', showing a single option, 'HSBC Headquarters Building (3rd generation)'. Click it, and you're taken to the Place for that building, along with associated notes and photos.

Enter the Dragon - 1973

Submitted by philk on Thu, 08/13/2009 - 09:00

I figured I should start off with my favourite film because it's also the film that got me interested in Chinese culture and, ultimately, has led to me being in Hong Kong - albeit indirectly.

It was made in 1973 as a joint production between Golden Harvest and Warner Bros and was the first such international co-production. It cost US$800,000 to make - making it one of the highest grossing films of all time (relative to cost). It was eventually released in August of 1973 and shot Bruce Lee to international stardom, though he had actually already died in July 1973.

Railways & Ropeways

Submitted by David on Fri, 08/07/2009 - 09:11

A question for you - how many railways and ropeways have there been in Hong Kong?

For 'railway' I'll include any place where there were wheeled vehicles running on metal tracks. A 'ropeway' is what we call a cable-car today. And let's say they had to have been built before 1950, to exclude more recent constructions like the MTR, or the Tung Chung cable car.

How many did you count?

I came up with eight railways, and three ropeways. Railways first:

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