<Tr> <Th> Yale Romanization </Th> <Td> Yīng suhk hēung góng </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Th> Jyutping </Th> <Td> Jing suk hoeng gong </Td> </Tr> <P> British Hong Kong denotes the period during which Hong Kong was governed as a colony and British Dependent Territory of the United Kingdom . Excluding the Japanese occupation during the Second World War, Hong Kong was under British rule from 1841 to 1997 . The colonial period began with the occupation of Hong Kong Island in 1841 during the First Opium War . The island was ceded by Qing China in the aftermath of the war in 1842 and established as a Crown colony in 1843 . The colony expanded to the Kowloon Peninsula in 1860 after the Second Opium War and was further extended when Britain obtained a 99 - year lease of the New Territories in 1898 . Although Hong Kong Island and Kowloon were ceded in perpetuity, the leased area, which comprised over 90 per cent of the territory, had such a vital role in the economy that Britain agreed to transfer the entire colony to China upon the expiration of that lease in 1997 . The transfer has been considered by many as marking the end of the British Empire . </P> <P> In 1836, the Manchu Qing government undertook a major policy review of the opium trade . Lin Zexu volunteered to take on the task of suppressing opium . In March 1839, he became Special Imperial Commissioner in Canton, where he ordered the foreign traders to surrender their opium stock . He confined the British to the Canton Factories and cut off their supplies . Chief Superintendent of Trade, Charles Elliot, complied with Lin's demands to secure a safe exit for the British, with the costs involved to be resolved between the two governments . When Elliot promised that the British government would pay for their opium stock, the merchants surrendered their 20,283 chests of opium, which were destroyed in public . </P>

When did the british take control of hong kong