| Tseung Kwan O | |||||||||||||
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| Traditional Chinese | 將軍澳 | ||||||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 将军澳 | ||||||||||||
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Tseung Kwan O (also called Cheung Kwan O or Junk Bay) is a bay in Sai Kung District, New Territories, Hong Kong. In the northern tip of the bay lies the Tseung Kwan O Village.
The Tseung Kwan O New Town, one of the nine new towns in Hong Kong, was mainly built on reclaimed land in the northern half of the bay.
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In Cantonese, Tseung Kwan (將軍) means the "General" of an army, and O (澳) means "bay". Therefore, Tseung Kwan O literally means "General's Bay".
The exact origin of the name Tseung Kwan O is unknown, but it is said to be named in honour of a Ming Dynasty general who visited Tseung Kwan O at some point. Another theory is that the name was chosen in the 17th century, when naval battles were fought against pirates from Japan at Tseung Kwan O. Yet another theory is that the pronunciation of "將軍" can sound like "Junk Wan" to the ears of English speakers; wan is also a transliteration of the Chinese word for "bay" (灣).
The current town center of Tseung Kwan O stands on reclaimed land. The English name Junk Bay was said to be derived from the existence of junks in the bay, and the reclamation land based on the landfill. The Fat Tong Chau (Junk Island) is in the southeastern part of the bay.
The bay is near the eastern mouth of Hong Kong's Victoria Harbour.
Before the development of the new town, the area around the bay was occupied by a number of fishing towns and villages. The Tseung Kwan O Village in the northern tip of the bay is about 600 years old. Other towns and villages include Tiu Keng Leng (Rennie's Mill), Hang Hau and Yau Yu Wan. Rennie's Mill was where Kuomintang loyalists were settled following the end of the Chinese civil war, and Hang Hau had a ship building industry.
The Hong Kong Government had been interested in developing a new town at Hang Hau because of its proximity to the urban area. The project was postponed for a long time owing to the extensive scale of reclamation in the bay, which is rather deep. It finally started under the name of Tseung Kwan O.
Tseung Kwan O Plaza (Chinese: 將軍澳廣場) is a private housing estate and shopping mall near MTR Tseung Kwan O Station. It was developed by Nan Fung Group in 2004. It comprises 8 high-rise buildings with a total of 2880 units.[1]