Calculated from the population and area above; their reference dates may differ.
On a familiar scale
≈ the size of Changhua County
The closest rung on the Taiwan reference ladder; see the sources below.
Land per resident
148 m² of land per resident
The inverse of population density, from the same area and population figures.
The outline is fitted to this frame, not a map for measuring distances. Outlying islands may make the main landmass appear smaller.
Taking out the land nobody lives on
How much of the land is actually built on?
Hong Kong
288 km²25.7% of all land
≈ 1.06 × Taipei City
26,160 people per km² 3.9 times the territory-wide average
The six urban classes in the Planning Department’s land utilization table added together: residential, commercial and office, industrial, institutional and open space, transportation, and other urban or built-up land. It therefore counts parks, stadiums, the airport, open storage yards, cemeteries and land that is merely vacant or under construction as built-up. Country parks and special areas, which cover roughly 40% of the territory, fall in the excluded woodland and water classes. The Planning Department publishes no single built-up total; this is the sum of its six urban rows.
Year-end population and total land area of the Hong Kong SAR.
Average administrative density does not describe population distribution in every neighborhood. Compare population definitions and reference dates alongside the numbers.
Place guide
How should this Hong Kong profile be read?
Hong Kong is represented as the complete Special Administrative Region. The familiar urban harbour occupies only part of a territory that also includes rural land, country parks and islands.
Territory-wide numbers
Land area and year-end population cover the full SAR. The resulting density is a territorial average, not a measurement of Kowloon, Hong Kong Island or any individual district.
Protected and less developed land remains part of the area, which is why density cannot be converted directly into available housing space.
Why compare it with Taiwan
Taiwan provides a familiar whole-territory reference and makes Hong Kong’s combination of limited land and large population visible.
For city-life questions, separate housing, commuting and built-area data would still be required.