Hong Kong is one of Asia’s busiest, frenetic and crowded cities and boasts the world’s densest collection of skyscrapers. But it is also filled with mountains, country parks, beaches and islands. Hong Kong actually is made up of three main parts: Hong Kong Island, Kowloon, and the New Territories. Its outlying southern islands or Islands District, including Lantau Island, where the airport is located, can be said to be a fourth part (administratively, the Islands District is part of New Territories).

Hong Kong Island is where the main government and business areas are located. However, the island is also very hilly in the center and the south. In the southeastern corner of the island is Dragon’s Back, considered one of the world’s best coastal hikes.

Convention centre and the IFC, Hong Kong’s second-tallest skyscraper, at right

Causeway Bay, the island’s main shopping district
Famous Hong Kong Island skyline at night

View of Shek O village from Dragon’s Back, southeast Hong Kong Island

Opposite Hong Kong Island is Kowloon, which faces it like a soft arrowhead. Kowloon is where the main shopping and working-class areas are located.

Busy market in Mongkok, a busy and notorious Kowloon district

View of Kowloon with Hong Kong Island in the background on the left

I actually stayed inside this place once

The New Territories is Hong Kong’s little-known rural backyard, and is actually the largest of the three. There are rural villages, farms, mountains, coastal villages, and wetlands, as well as densely-populated towns.

Fisherman selling his catch at Sai Kung, on the east coast

Actual farmland in Hong Kong

Wetland Park in Tin Shui Wai, northwest New Territories. Next to it are apartment blocks.

Birds at Wetland Park

Walled village, centuries-old relic of a time when villagers feared bandits and pirates. Only found in the New Territories, there are less than a handful left.

Hong Kong’s main outlying islands include Lantau and smaller ones like Lamma island and Cheung Chau, which still have local fishing villages and laidback communities. 
Tai O village, Lantau

Tian Tan Buddha, better known as Big Buddha

Lantau Peak

Lamma Island

Cheung Chau, a tiny island to the east of Lantau