Sham Shui Po
| Sham Shui Po | |||||||||||||||
| Chinese | 深水埗 | ||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Literal meaning | "deep water pier" | ||||||||||||||
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| Transcriptions | |
|---|---|
| Standard Mandarin | |
| Hanyu Pinyin | Shēnshuǐbù |
| Yue: Cantonese | |
| Yale Romanization | sām séui bóu |
| IPA | [sɐ́msɵypǒu] |
| Jyutping | sam1 seoi2 bo2 |
Sham Shui Po, or Shamshuipo, is an area of Sham Shui Po District, Hong Kong, situated in the northwestern part of the Kowloon Peninsula, north of Tai Kok Tsui (大角嘴), east of Cheung Sha Wan and south of Shek Kip Mei. Sham Shui Po is known for its street market for electronic devices.
The discovery in 1955 of the Lei Cheng Uk Han Tomb indicates that as early as 2000 years ago there were Chinese people settled in what is now Sham Shui Po. Sham Shui Po means "Deep Water Pier" in Cantonese. At the time, the water in Sham Shui Po was deeper than the beach of Cheung Sha Wan to the northwest. It is close to the former peninsula of Tai Kok Tsui, the low ridge of which ends in Sham Shui Po.
In the first stage, the town of Sham Shui Po was bounded by Yen Chow Street, Tung Chau Street, Wong Chuk Street and Apliu Street. Part of the town was on reclamation. The town was surrounded by villages of Un Chau, Tin Liu and Tong Mei. A nullah along Nam Cheong Street was constructed to drain the water of rivers north and east (which explains the street's wideness). The town was closed to Cosmopolitan Dock on the outer shore of Tai Kok Tsui.
Under Japanese occupation, a concentration camp was maintained here for most of the duration of the Second World War. An account of life by a British POW has been published as The Hard Way: Surviving Shamshuipo POW Camp 1941-45 by Victor Stanley Ebbage (Spellmount, 2011).
As Sham Shui Po was one of the earliest developed areas in Hong Kong, it was once a commercial, industrial and transportation hub of the territory. As of 2003, Sham Shui Po is covered mainly by residential buildings, with public housing estates built on approximately 810,000 square metres (8,700,000 sq ft) of land. Factories and warehouses are still concentrated mainly in Cheung Sha Wan.
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