The old map on your wall may not say "Hong Kong" anywhere on it.
Before 1842 there was no place called Hong Kong on a map. This coast, together with what is now Shenzhen, belonged to one county: Xin'an (San On). That is why the earliest maps of this area are titled "Complete Map of Xin'an County" or "Coastal Defence Map of the Xin'an County Gazetteer". This piece explains the difference between the two versions you are most likely to meet, and how to tell which one you are looking at.
1. What was Xin'an County?
Xin'an County was established in 1573, in the Ming dynasty. Its jurisdiction covered what is now Hong Kong, Shenzhen, and part of Dongguan; the county seat was at Nantou. In the early Republic it reverted to its older name, Bao'an.
So before 1842, Hong Kong Island, Kowloon and the New Territories all lay inside Xin'an County. That is why pre-colonial maps of this area carry the county's name rather than "Hong Kong".
2. The 1819 gazetteer map: a coastal defence sheet
The gazetteer compiled in 1819 (Jiaqing 24) included a "coastal defence map". Its purpose was not to draw streets or villages but the coastline and islands: where the bays were, where the forts were, where boats could lie.
That is why the interior is largely blank and the dense lettering sits along the shore and around the islands. If your sheet has a wide empty interior, a writhing coastline and very small, tightly packed characters, it most likely belongs to this family.
3. The 1866 Volonteri map: the whole county, in two languages
In 1866 the Italian missionary Simeone Volonteri, of the Milan Foreign Missions Seminary, produced the Complete Map of Xin'an County. The difference from the defence sheet is immediate: Chinese and English names side by side, and the whole county drawn — not just the coast, but the hills, roads and villages inland as well.
The sheet circulated in Hong Kong at the time. For a reader today its most practical feature is the bilingual labelling: you can take a modern place name and find it on the map without reading cursive Chinese.
A further edition circulated in 1874, with the same layout as the 1866 sheet. If the place names and the shape of the coastline look nearly identical but the lettering or small details differ, it is most likely one of these later printings.
4. Telling them apart: three checks
One: read the title. "Coastal defence map" belongs to the 1819 gazetteer family; "Complete Map of Xin'an County" belongs to the 1866 family.
Two: look for English. Bilingual means the 1866 family; Chinese only means the 1819 family.
Three: look inland. A blank interior means a defence sheet; an interior filled with hills, roads and villages means a county map.
5. Why people still hang these two
Because they do not draw "Hong Kong" — a name that only takes on this meaning after 1842 — but the place before it became Hong Kong. Put either beside a map from 1841 or later and the coastline starts to move: reclamation, roads, buildings, all traceable.
If you want the version closest to the pre-colonial period, the two families offer different things: one is about defence, the other about the county as a whole. Hung together, they are the same place drawn two ways.
6. What happened to the county after 1898
The county boundary did not survive the colonial period intact. Hong Kong Island was ceded in 1842, Kowloon south of Boundary Street followed in 1860, and the New Territories were leased in 1898 for ninety-nine years. Each of those steps cut land out of Xin'an County, and later maps redraw the same coast with a border running through it.
That is why a Xin'an county map and a 1900s Hong Kong map of the same area look like two different countries: the physical coastline is similar, but the line drawn across it, and the language used to label it, are not.
See them in print
We reproduce the 1819 gazetteer coastal defence map, the 1866 Volonteri map and the 1874 edition on canvas, digitally restored, in six sizes from A4 to 80×120 cm, with an optional solid wood frame in natural, black or white.
1819 Xin'an County coastal defence map (canvas)
1866 Complete Map of Xin'an County, Volonteri (canvas)
1874 Complete Map of Xin'an County (canvas)
Sources consulted
- Lands Department, Hong Kong Map Service 2.0
- DATA.GOV.HK open data
- Hong Kong Chronicles
- Hong Kong Yearbook
Related reading
1841: the map that only says HONGKONG
1898, 1905, 1909: three dates on one map
Buying guide: year, size and material