The United Kingdom transfers sovereignty over Hong Kong to China.
The Hong Kong handover, domestically known as the transfer of sovereignty over Hong Kong, was the formal passing of authority over the territory of the then colony of Hong Kong from the United Kingdom to the People's Republic of China at midnight on 1 July 1997. This event ended 156 years of British rule in the former colony. Hong Kong was reestablished as a special administrative region of China, and partially continues to maintain its economic and governing systems distinct from those of mainland China, although Chinese influence increased after the passing of the 2020 Hong Kong national security law.Hong Kong had been a colony of the British Empire since 1842, after the First Opium War, and its territory was expanded on two occasions; in 1860 with the addition of Kowloon Peninsula and Stonecutters Island, and again in 1898 when Britain obtained a 99-year lease for the New Territories. The date of the handover in 1997 marked the end of this lease. The 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration had set the conditions under which Hong Kong was to be transferred, with China agreeing to maintain existing structures of government and economy under a principle of "one country, two systems" for a period of 50 years. Hong Kong became China's first special administrative region; it was followed by Macau after its transfer from Portugal in 1999.
With a 1997 population of about 6.5 million, Hong Kong constituted 97 percent of the total population of all British Dependent Territories at the time and was one of the UK's last significant colonial territories. Its handover marked the end of British colonial prestige in South East Asia in a region where it had never recovered from the Second World War. The transfer, which was marked by a handover ceremony attended by Charles, Prince of Wales and broadcast around the world, is often considered to mark the definitive end of the British Empire.