Tap Mun
| 塔門 | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Geography | |
| Location | Tai Po District |
| Coordinates | 22°28′35″N 114°21′45″E / 22.47639°N 114.36250°ECoordinates: 22°28′35″N 114°21′45″E / 22.47639°N 114.36250°E |
| Area | 1.69 km2 (0.65 sq mi) |
| Administration | |
| Demographics | |
| Population | 100 (approx) |
| Grass Island, Hong Kong | |||||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 塔門 | ||||||||
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| Transcriptions | |
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| Yue: Cantonese | |
| Yale Romanization | Taap mùhn |
| Jyutping | Taap3 mun4 |
Grass Island (Chinese: 塔門) or Tap Mun is an island in Hong Kong, located in the northeastern part of the territory. Its area is 1.69 km². Administratively, it is part of the Tai Po District. There are about 100 people living on the island.
Grass Island is located in the northeastern part of the Hong Kong territory, between Mirs Bay and the North Channel. It lies north of the Sai Kung East Country Park on the Sai Kung Peninsula. To the east is Kung Chau, to the south is the South Channel, to the west is Wan Tsai and to the southwest is Long Harbour.
A tablet in the Tin Hau Temple on the island states Tap Mun, as part of Mirs Bay, was registered under the administration of the Dongguan County by the Tsui and Yip clans before 1573 and that they thus held the subsoil (Chinese: 地骨; Sidney Lau: dei6gwat1; literally, the bones of the land) rights as taxpayer under the Customary Land Law. By the late 17th century, Tanka fisherman began to use the anchorage and built the temple, the topsoil (Chinese: 地皮; Sidney Lau: dei6pei4; literally, the skin of the land) rights being granted to them in perpetuity by the subsoil title holders. As a result of a dispute over the land that arose in the mid-18th century, the Magistrate and Prefect of the Dongguan County Court ruled that the Customary Land Law took precedence over the Imperial Law, thus preserving the subsoil:topsoil rights status quo (including the rule that, though the tax-paid land area of the subsoil holder was only the temple itself and its immediately vicinity, the rights of the topsoil holders extended automatically to all adjoining waste and mountainous land, i.e. the entire island). Over time, the first topsoil holder's interest in the land will have passed to an ancestral trust of his family so that by the time of British colonial rule, the effective title holders in the topsoil will have been a trust of the villagers as a whole. The British refused to recognise all subsoil rights (their taxpaying status to the Imperial government being at odds with British sovereignty and its Crown land concept), leaving the only effective right in the land in the hands of the tenant topsoil rights holders, i.e. the village ancestral trust of the Tanka families.
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