Hong Kong 🇭🇰

Hong Kong is one of the territories of Eastern Asia that appears on world lists without being a UN member state. Its full official name is Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China. Its seat of government is City of Victoria.

The land area is 1,104 km², which ranks it 189th of the 250 countries and territories in this dataset — just behind Martinique and just ahead of São Tomé and Príncipe. Put next to a territory most people can picture, it is about half again the size of Singapore.

The population is about 7.5 million, placing it 104th of 250 by population — between Laos above it and Turkmenistan below. Measured only against its own subregion, it is 7th of 8 in size and 6th in population.

Hong Kong does not hold a United Nations seat of its own. It is administered as a dependency or overseas territory rather than as a sovereign state, which is why it sits outside the 193 member states while still appearing among the 250 entries on this site.

Not holding a UN seat is not the same as having no self-government, and the administrative details make that clear. Hong Kong has 5 of the five markers of separate administration tracked on this page — its own currency, its own dialling code, its own internet domain, its own iso codes and a designated capital. In day-to-day terms it is run substantially as its own jurisdiction.

• Its own currencyHKD
• Its own dialling code+852
• Its own internet domain.hk
• Its own ISO codeshk / HKG
• A designated capitalCity of Victoria

The coordinates the dataset gives are 22.3° N, 114.2° E, which puts it in the northern hemisphere, roughly 2,479 km from the equator, in what geographers would call tropical latitudes.

Mexico, Oman and Cuba sit at almost exactly the same latitude on other parts of the globe.

It borders 1 neighbour: China.

With both a coast and land borders, it has the trade options a landlocked territory does not.

Spread across 1,104 km², that works out at about 6,815 people per square kilometre, which makes it among the most densely populated places on earth. For comparison, the median entry on this list sits near 90 per square kilometre.

The demonym is Hong Konger, so residents are Hong Kongers.

It recognises 2 languages: Chinese and English. Chinese, the first listed, is shared with 4 other entries worldwide.

Against Asia as a whole it is the 33rd most populous of 50 entries, and it accounts for under 1% of everyone living in Eastern Asia.

The Hong Kong dollar (HKD) is used only in Hong Kong among the 250 entries on this site. Its own currency is one of the clearest markers of an economy that sets its own monetary policy rather than importing somebody else's.

Language reaches wider still. English is listed for 91 entries here, Hong Kong among them, so a visitor who speaks it can be understood across a large part of the map. Shared language tends to outlive the empires, trade routes and migrations that spread it, which is why the linguistic map and the political one rarely line up.

Zoom in from the world to Eastern Asia and Hong Kong sits 6th of 8 by population and 7th by area. Its immediate company in that ordering is Taiwan just above and Mongolia just below, which is a more honest comparison set than a global league table.

China is the largest of the group by population, and every entry in Eastern Asia has its own page here if you want to work through the whole neighbourhood rather than one country at a time.

• 🇹🇼 Taiwan
• 🇲🇳 Mongolia
• 🇨🇳 China

It uses the Hong Kong dollar ($, HKD). That currency appears nowhere else on this list.

City of Victoria is the seat of government and the answer most quizzes are looking for.

The top-level domain is .hk. To phone it from abroad you dial +852. In ISO terms it is hk in two letters and HKG in three.

Hong Kong is not a UN member state. Its official name points to China as the administering state. Of the 250 entries here, 57 are territories or observers rather than member states.