Situated in close proximity to Hong Kong’s world-famous financial and business centre, which is also a food and shopping paradise, Hong Kong UNESCO Global Geopark of China is lauded as a unique “Geopark in the City”, with the city centre a mere one-hour bus or car ride away.

Hong Kong UNESCO Global Geopark’s major geoattractions include well-outcropped acidic volcanic hexagonal rock columns, of which the average diameter is 1.2 metres and which are distributed over a land-and-sea area of 100 square kilometres. The Geopark also has comprehensive sedimentary rock formations formed from the Devonian to the Paleogene (about 400 to 55 million years ago). It is integrated with diverse ecological resources such as mangroves, fung shui woods and coral communities and well-preserved Hakka walled-villages, fishing villages and historical relics such as temples that reveal the rich cultural heritage of the area, all combining to form the unique natural landscape of Hong Kong UNESCO Global Geopark.

The Hong Kong UNESCO Global Geopark offers a wide variety of educational activities for local schools and youngsters from their sister Geoparks that promote Earth and environmental science, and encourages sustainable social and economic development in the adjacent areas. This includes a number of tailor-made activities for UNESCO Global Geopark schools under the Hong Kong UNESCO Global Geopark School Programme.

Thanks to public support and local engagement, geo-tourism is a new component of Hong Kong’s tourist industry, providing visitors with an opportunity to experience the rich and extraordinary natural world of Hong Kong. The involvement in capacity building to benefit the local communities in the neigbourhood areas ensures the sustainable development of the Hong Kong UNESCO Global Geopark in accordance with the principles of the UNESCO Global Geoparks. Local communities in the neighbourhood areas are actively engaged in, and benefit from, the UNESCO Global Geopark through a series of local engagement and partnership projects.