Sham Shui Po District overview 深水埗

About Sham Shui Po

Apliu Street’s electronics and second-hand goods contrast with the cloth and sewing materials around Nam Cheong Street and Ki Lung Street. The Golden Computer Centre adds a dense indoor market for computer hardware and games. These are working shopping streets, so let the goods, signs and shopfront arrangements guide a visit without assuming every shop welcomes photography or offers the same retail terms.

The discovery of the Lei Cheng Uk Han Tomb (李郑屋汉墓) in 1955 indicates that people had settled in the Sham Shui Po area by the Eastern Han dynasty. The Xin'an County Gazetteer (新安县志) records villages called Sham Shui Po (深水莆) and Cheung Sha Wan (长沙湾) on the Kowloon peninsula during the Jiaqing era of the Qing dynasty; before twentieth-century urbanisation it was a market town with streets including Sham Shui Po Main Street, Main Street (正街) and Lime Kiln Street (灰窑街), near today's junction of Nam Cheong Street and Yee Kuk Street.

The 1860 Convention of Peking ceded southern Kowloon to Britain and split Sham Shui Po in two; the small British portion was renamed Fuk Tsuen Heung (福全乡) in 1892 and, lying near a border checkpoint close to Victoria City, drew Chinese residents to settle and trade. The 1898 Convention for the Extension of Hong Kong Territory brought the rest of the district under British administration. In the 1910s the old market streets were cleared and rebuilt, along with reclaimed land, into new streets lined with multi-storey tong lau, and the district's built-up area later extended north to Tai Po Road as neighbouring villages were cleared in the 1930s.

What to look for

• Apliu Street mixes electronics, repair-related goods and second-hand stalls.
• Fabric shops around Nam Cheong Street and Ki Lung Street display cloth, ribbons and sewing supplies.

The surrounding area

An inland Kowloon neighborhood for specialist streets, independent shops and everyday eating.

Location & getting there

Getting to Sham Shui Po

Use Sham Shui Po MTR station on the Tsuen Wan Line for the Apliu Street and Golden Computer Centre area. Choose the named fabric streets for a separate shopping focus; the indoor computer arcades can be crowded.