Prosperous Garden
| Yau Ma Tei | |||||||||||||||||
| Chinese | 油麻地 | ||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Transcriptions | |
|---|---|
| Standard Mandarin | |
| Hanyu Pinyin | Yóumádì |
| Hakka | |
| Romanization | yiu4 ma2 ti4 |
| Yue: Cantonese | |
| Yale Romanization | yau4 ma4 dei2 |
| Jyutping | jau4 maa4 dei2 |
Yau Ma Tei, also known as Waterloo (see Name section), is an area in the Yau Tsim Mong District in the south of the Kowloon Peninsula in Hong Kong.
Yau Ma Tei is a phonetic transliteration of the name 油麻地 (originally written as 油蔴地) in Cantonese. It can also be spelt as Yaumatei, Yau Ma Ti, Yaumati or Yau-ma-Tee.
Yau (油) literally means "oil", Ma (麻 or 蔴) can either refer to "sesame" or "jute", and Tei (地) means "field" or "open ground". Hence, Yau Ma Tei can be interpreted to mean either "oil-sesame field" or "oil and jute ground". This dual-interpretation is perhaps the reason why there are two explanations for the origin of the place name.
The area is also named Waterloo in English, after Waterloo Road. This name was used for the MTR station in the area when it was opened in 1979.
Dundas Street marks the north border of Yau Ma Tei with Mong Kok and Austin Road its south border with Tsim Sha Tsui. To its west is Victoria Harbour and its east the hilly region of Ho Man Tin.
Southern Yau Ma Tei was traditionally known as Kwun Chung, but came to be called Jordan after the completion of Jordan MTR station at its heart.
Yau Ma Tei was a village in Kowloon. It was mentioned that a Chinese burial ground was assigned at a mile northeast of a village of Yau-ma-Tee at 2 December 1871.
The name Yau Ma Tei is not thought to pre-date British rule. However, Kwun Chung is mentioned in many historic documents. Kwun Chung was a river valley with village and cultivation. On the hill south near the coast was Kwun Chung Fort built by Chinese (Qing) official Lin Tse-hsu to defend against the British. During the Battle of Kwun Chung in 1839, the fort — together with Tsim Sha Tsui Fort — successfully kept the British from Kowloon. The fort with the hill was demolished for development during early British rule of Kowloon.
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Wikipedia