The forgotten border town of Sha Tau Kok: a tale of territorial rows and cold war fallout in a sleepy Hong Kong outpost
- Protected area holds a checkpoint with mainland China that is the least frequented in city, and some 3,000 residents remain in what used to be a thriving town
Sha Tau Kok is a sleepy town in Hong Kong’s northern New Territories, but it may as well be in another far-flung part of the world. One of the city’s remaining rural regions has one end that falls under a country park, while its northern border straddles local soil and mainland China.
Located within the protected Frontier Closed Area, with a town centre that hugs the shoreline of Starling Inlet, this border town is seldom visited and rarely features in Hong Kong’s public consciousness.
Most of its inhabitants are from the extended Hakka lineage.
The Sha Tau Kok Control Point, or Shatoujiao Port, as it is known across the border, was opened in 1985 by colonial government official John Boyd and Shumchun deputy mayor Zhen Xipui.
Today, it is the least frequented of the seven control points between Guangdong province and the New Territories.
According to Hong Kong’s Immigration Department, the control point processed about 3.73 million drivers and people in 2016 – making it the least busy checkpoint in the city.
