Hong Kong, officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China (HKSAR), is a city located at the eastern side of the Pearl River Estuary in southern China. It consists of Hong Kong Island, the Kowloon Peninsula, the New Territories, Lantau Island, and over 200 outlying islands. Hong Kong is one of the most densely populated places in the world and has a humid subtropical climate. As Hong Kong was a colony of the British Empire from 1842 to 1997 and developed into a transit port for international trades, it is characterised by its combination of eastern and western cultures.