Articles

Tuen Mun River

• Tuen Mun is situated at the north west of the New Territories, with the Castle Peak range lying on its west, itself in the piedmont of Tai Lam to the east and bordering the coast of the Deep Bay further to the north. Growing in a beautiful country scene with green mountains and streams, it is one of the new towns first developed in Hong Kong. The district of Tuen Mun covers a vast area of about 8,700 hectares, almost the size of the Kowloon Peninsula. It stands at a distance of 32 km from urban Kowloon, and 7 km and 18 km from Yuen Long and Tsuen Wan respectively.

• The development of Tuen Mun New Town started in the 1960's when its population was a mere of 20,000 odd. With extensive reclamation and the completion of more and more high rise buildings, it has grown into a big town with over 500,000 inhabitants. Besides village houses indigenous to the rural area, there are also a variety of other residential buildings in the district of Tuen Mun, including newly built village houses, private housing estates, single block buildings, low density residences, public housing and Home Ownership Scheme estates provided by the Government, mostly developed along the Tuen Mun River and in the vicinity of Tuen Mun Station.

Public housing estate

Community Facilities

• All kinds of community facilities have also been in place to go in step with the growth of the local population. There are one university, one institute of vocational education, three higher education institutions, 38 secondary schools, 37 primary schools, 69 kindergartens and child care centres, seven special schools*, three hospitals and three libraries in the district. Cultural and recreational facilities include a town park comparable to the Victoria Park in size, an auditorium in the town hall, six indoor sports centres, two sports grounds, two natural turf soccer pitches, a number of hard surface soccer pitches, badminton, basketball, tennis, squash and gateball courts, roller skating rinks, swimming pools, beaches, water sports centres, barbeque sites, morning trails, an archery ranges, a sport climbing facility, pet gardens, a public golf driving range and a public riding school. They are all available to the community for different kinds of leisure and recreation.

  * Information from the webpage of the Education Bureau

• Tuen Mun also has a well developed transport system. Within the district public transport services are primarily provided by the Light Rail Transit with its feeder bus fleet, taxis and minibuses. For outward traffic to the Hong Kong Island, the Airport, the boundary and urban Kowloon, services are available from the Tuen Ma Line of the MTR, ferries, buses and minibuses. Taking a more active approach to address the demands of the local community, the Government has been carrying out improvement projects for the outward traffic of Tuen Mun in recent years, including the widening works for Castle Peak Road – Castle Peak Bay and the commissioning of Tuen Mun – Chek Lap Kok Tunnel has offer a more direct route to connect the Northwest New Territories, North Lantau, the Hong Kong International Airport and the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge. Regarding cross-boundary traffic, the commissioning of the Hong Kong – Shenzhen Western Corridor in mid 2007 has strengthened the outward transport links between Tuen Mun and the Pan-Pearl River Delta and other destinations.

Light Rail Transit

Dolphin Square

• While undergoing rapid modern development, Tuen Mun has not failed to preserve a number of scenic spots and monuments of historical and cultural significance. Well known tourist spots include Hung Lau, the Dade Institute, Ching Chung Koon, Tsing Shan Monastery, Ching Leung Nunnery, Miu Fat Buddhist Monastery, Tin Hau Temple, the To's Ancestral Hall, Hong Kong Gold Coast, Sam Shing Hui and Sam Shing Temple, Tsing Chuen Wai, the Emperor's Cave and the Lookout for Chinese White Dolphins at Lung Kwu Tan. They are all popular attractions to the public during holidays.