Hong Kong – British Admiralty + Edward Belcher, (1841) 1937

PRE-WORLD WAR II CHART OF HONG KONG — THE FIRST BRITISH SURVEY OF HONG KONG HARBOUR, UPDATED TO 1937

“Hong Kong.” Copper engraving published by the Hydrographic Office of the British Admiralty, based on the surveys of Edward Belcher in 1841. This edition with additions and corrections published in 1937. Size: 70 x 102.5 cm.

Large nautical chart of Hong Kong and the surrounding waters, with the island of Hong Kong at its centre, Kowloon and the Chinese mainland to the north, and the many islands, bays, anchorages and navigable channels around the colony. The chart is densely covered with depth soundings, anchorages, course lines, compasses, beacons, tidal data and navigational warnings. The relief on land is indicated by hachures, clearly bringing out the mountainous character of Hong Kong, Kowloon and the surrounding islands.

The origins of this chart lie in the military and colonial context of the First Opium War. When the British occupied Hong Kong on 26 January 1841, they acquired a strategically situated base on the South China coast. For the Royal Navy, an accurate survey of the harbour and surrounding waters was essential: warships needed to anchor and manoeuvre safely, troops and supplies had to be landed, and the new position had to serve as a base for further pressure on China. It was in this context that Edward Belcher began his survey of Hong Kong Harbour in 1841. The harbour was formally ceded to Great Britain on 29 August 1842, following the Treaty of Nanking, and Hong Kong was proclaimed a Crown colony on 26 June 1843.

The first edition of the chart appeared in 1843. As Hong Kong developed into one of Asia’s most important ports during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the chart remained in use and was repeatedly updated. This later edition thus retains the historical core of the first British survey, while incorporating the nautical knowledge required for a modern colonial harbour: safe anchorages, revised buoyage, new soundings, port information and corrections from the Hong Kong harbour authorities.

When this edition appeared in 1937, the chart acquired a new geopolitical significance. East Asia was by then under severe pressure from Japanese expansion. Since the occupation of Manchuria in 1931, the balance of power in the region had already shifted, and in July 1937 the conflict between China and Japan escalated dramatically. Hong Kong, as a British Crown colony, formally remained outside this conflict, yet occupied an acutely sensitive strategic position: close to the South China coast, opposite a Chinese hinterland threatened by war, and as a well-equipped deep-water harbour within the British imperial network. The colony served as a trading port, naval base, observation post and refuge for those fleeing China. This nautical chart thus reveals not only the maritime infrastructure of Hong Kong, but also a harbour that, on the eve of the Pacific War, was becoming ever more explicitly a geopolitical outpost on the front line.

Price: Euro 2.150,-