British Hong Kong British Hong Kong British Hong Kong denotes the period during which Hong Kong was governed as a colony and British Dependent Territory of the United Kingdom. Excluding the Japanese occupation during the Second World War, Hong Kong was under British rule from 1841 to 1997. The colonial period began with the occupation of Hong Kong Island in 1841 during the First Opium War. The island was ceded by Qing China in the aftermath of the war in 1842 and established as a Crown colony in 1843. The colony expanded to the Kowloon Peninsula in 1860 after the Second Opium War
Religion in Hong Kong which comprehend the worship of local gods and ancestors, in many cases not declaring this practice as a religious affiliation in surveys. The traditional Chinese religiosity was generally discouraged during the British rule over Hong Kong, which favoured Christianity. With the end of the British rule and the handover of the sovereignty of the city-state to China, there has been a renewal of Buddhist and Chinese folk religions. Chinese folk religion, also named Shenism, is the indigenous religion of the Han Chinese. Its focus is the worship of the "shen" (神 "expressions", "gods"), that are the generative powers of nature,