Homg Kong Resting Places - Burials, Crematopms 1841 - 2026
From Fever Swamp to Green Burials: How Hong Kong Handles the Dead
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Homg Kong Resting Places - Burials, Crematopms 1841 - 2026
Foreword by Jamie
From Fever Swamp to Green Burials: How Hong Kong Handles the Deceased
This is a subject I have been wanting to write about for a while but it is a sensitive issue in so many ways but in other ways, why? it is a subject that affects everyone at some stage,- in Hong Kong we have quite a few cultures in play not just Chinese and Western and if you are in Happy Valley next to the famous race track you cannot help bu notice the grave yards which dominate the hillside
I have friends who do Cemetery Tours, I have taken guests to cemeteries including the Jewish Cemetery and the Mlitary Cemeteries and it was always a moving experience and there was that sense of history, I also took our yougest son when he was 11 years old to a military cemetery for a history lesson
When we take the No.15 bus up to Victoria Peak there is a stretch along Stubbs Road where you look down and see the hillside below dotted with cemeteries. Different ones sitting close together, the Anglican one by far the largest. It is an interesting place to walk around when you have the time. Death is not something we talk about lightly, but these resting places are part of the real story of Hong Kong, from the early days of 1841 right through to the present. Over 50 years living here, you notice how the city handles the end of life, and how the old cemeteries still sit there, quiet among the high rises and the racecourse.
This is a sensitive subject. The point is not to dwell on the morbid side, but to set down what has actually happened with burial and funeral practice in this city since the British arrived. The old graves tell stories of disease, war, commerce, faith and ordinary people who never expected to stay here forever. The newer arrangements show how a dense place has had to adapt.
Looking down from the No.15 bus on Stubbs Road
From the upper deck of the No.15 you get a clear view of the cluster on the western side of Happy Valley. The large terraced ground is the Hong Kong Cemetery, the old Colonial Cemetery. Beside it sit the Catholic, Muslim, Parsee and Hindu grounds. Further up the valley is the Jewish Cemetery on Shan Kwong Road. They are all close together because that was the practical place available once the valley had been written off for living. Walking through them now is quiet and informative. The stones range from grand Victorian monuments to simpler markers, and the paths wind up the slope in the way that made sense on a Hong Kong hillside.
Why Happy Valley became the main site in Hong Kong
Happy Valley was not chosen because it was a pleasant spot. In the early 1840s the British looked at the Wong Nai Chung valley as a possible place for the main settlement. Flat land was rare on the island. The valley had been rice paddies farmed by local villagers. When the drainage was disturbed during the early military and building work, mosquitoes thrived. An epidemic of malaria and other fevers hit hard in 1843. The valley became known as a fever swamp. The British abandoned the idea of making it the business centre and used the unhealthy ground for burying their dead.
The English name Happy Valley is a British euphemism for a cemetery, a wry joke on a place associated with death. Similar names appear in other British colonial settings. They drained much of the valley later and built the racecourse that is still there. The cemeteries remained on the western hillside.
The early years in Hong Kong from 1841
When the British force landed in 1841 the death rate was high. Soldiers and sailors succumbed to tropical disease and the climate. Early military burials were rough and scattered. The first Protestant and Roman Catholic cemeteries were established in the Wanchai area around what is now Sun, Moon, Star and St Francis Streets. Those sites filled quickly. In 1845 the Colonial Cemetery was laid out in the drained Wong Nai Chung area by the Royal Engineers under Lieutenant T. B. Collinson. A chapel was built, paid for from public funds. The Roman Catholics were given an adjoining site in 1848. Parsees, Muslims and others followed with their own small grounds nearby. Chinese who died and whose families could afford it were often returned to their home villages on the Mainland. Others were buried where it was convenient.
The Happy Valley cluster of Western Cemeteries
These are the ones you see from the bus.
Hong Kong Cemetery (also called the Colonial Cemetery or the old Protestant Cemetery) opened in 1845. It is the largest of the group and is still managed by the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department. There are roughly 7,000 recorded graves and memorials on the terraces. The earliest known burial dates from 1841. Notable people include Sir Robert Ho Tung, Sir Paul Chater and Sir Kai Ho, along with many missionaries and ordinary residents. There are about 79 Commonwealth war graves from the First World War and 62 from the Second World War, maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. A Japanese section holds around 470 graves, mostly from the Meiji period. New burials are now rare, but the ground remains open and in use for certain cases. Walking it is still worthwhile.
St Michael’s Catholic Cemetery opened in 1848 on land granted next to the Colonial Cemetery. The gateway is from that year and the chapel from 1916. Both are Grade II historic buildings. It remains in use for permanent burial lots, urn burials and niches for the Catholic community.
The Muslim Cemetery dates from the 1870s and is the oldest Muslim burial ground in Hong Kong. There is another at Cape Collinson. The Parsee Cemetery opened around 1852. The Hindu Cemetery dates from the 1880s and includes a small temple building. These smaller grounds sit tightly against the larger ones.
The Jewish Cemetery is a short distance away on Shan Kwong Road, established around 1855–1857 on land bought and donated by the Sassoon family. The first burial was in 1857. There are roughly 378 graves, including members of the Sassoon and Kadoorie families. It is still used, though not every Jewish resident is buried there.
Chinese Cemeteries in Hong Kong
Chinese burial practice was different from the start. Many preferred to return remains to ancestral villages. Local sites developed later. The Board of Management of the Chinese Permanent Cemeteries now looks after four main grounds for Chinese permanent residents:
Aberdeen Chinese Permanent Cemetery (opened 1913, the first)
Tsuen Wan Chinese Permanent Cemetery (land granted 9th August 1935, opened 19th June 1941)
Cape Collinson Chinese Permanent Cemetery (opened 1963)
Tseung Kwan O Chinese Permanent Cemetery (opened 1989)
These offer a mix of permanent and time-limited plots, bone niches, ash niches and, more recently, family ash gardens. There are also various Chinese Christian cemeteries (Pok Fu Lam Road and others), Buddhist grounds at Cape Collinson, and smaller community or church sites. Exact headstone counts are hard to pin down across all of them because many older markers have been lost or relocated, and newer sites are mostly niches.
Land area of the four Chinese Permanent Cemeteries
Tseung Kwan O: about 285,000 square metres
Cape Collinson: about 198,000 square metres
Tsuen Wan: about 120,000 square metres
Aberdeen: smaller again
Niche counts (main buildings, approximate)
Tsuen Wan: about 7,400 in the first building and about 32,000 in the second (roughly 39,000+), plus extensive open-air niches
Cape Collinson: about 20,000, 30,000 and 9,500 across its three buildings (roughly 59,500+), plus open-air
Tseung Kwan O: around 93,000 in its main block, with another 72,000-odd being phased in
All four grounds together: well over 300,000 burial lots and niches in total
Tsuen Wan Chinese Permanent Cemetery sits on the hillside of Ma Kok Shan, facing Rambler Channel. From the Tung Chung Line (MTR Subway) as the train approaches Tsing Yi you look straight across the water at the terraced slope covered in graves and the two large columbarium blocks. Thousands of people, including plenty of overseas visitors on their way to the airport or Tung Chung, pass that view every day. The site is well clear of the nearest residential blocks and the hillside drops towards the channel. It is the second Chinese Permanent Cemetery after Aberdeen, managed by the Board, and still offers coffin burial lots as well as the niches. It has appeared in films including Contagion and a local title that used the grounds for a family scene.
What makes Tsuen Wan the one that catches the eye is the open-air niches. From the train window the hillside is a solid bank of them, terrace after terrace, running down towards the channel. The sheer number of those outdoor niches, packed onto the slope and fully visible, is what registers. People look up from their phones. Foreign visitors point. It feels larger than the land-area figures suggest because so much of it is laid out in plain sight. That is the view most of us know, even if we have never set foot inside the gates.
By comparison, the single biggest cemetery of any kind in Hong Kong
Wo Hop Shek Public Cemetery near Fanling is still in a different league. It opened in 1950 once the Island grounds began to fill and covers 222.4 hectares (more than 2.2 square kilometres). It is managed by the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department and holds both traditional burial sections and large columbarium complexes.
Scale at Wo Hop Shek
Total area: 222.4 hectares
Existing niches: already well over 100,000, including roughly 43,700 at the Kiu Tau Road columbarium and 44,100 in Phase VI
Further phases under way: another 80,000 niches planned across the next stages, with longer-term proposals for far more
Also includes Gallant Garden (for public servants who died on duty) and multiple Gardens of Remembrance for scattering ashes
Traditional coffin burial lots exist, though most are subject to the usual six-year term before exhumation
It is the largest public cemetery in Hong Kong by a wide margin, both in land and in overall capacity. Tsuen Wan still wins for the view that stops people on the train. Wo Hop Shek is the one that takes the rest of the load.
Military Cemeteries in Hong Kong
These are separate and maintained to a different standard.
Sai Wan War Cemetery on Cape Collinson Road in Chai Wan was built after the war and holds around 1,528 burials, mainly Commonwealth dead from the Battle of Hong Kong and subsequent captivity. About 445 are unidentified. The memorial at the entrance records more than 2,000 who have no known grave. There is also a cremation memorial for those whose remains were cremated according to their faith.
Stanley Military Cemetery is older. It contains service graves and the graves of civilian internees who died during the Japanese occupation. There are roughly 595 Commonwealth burials from the Second World War, many unidentified. Some of the original headstones were carved by prisoners of war from local granite.
Cape Collinson Military Cemetery is nearby. The Gurkha Cemetery is at San Tin in the New Territories and is only open on certain days. There are also scattered war graves in the Hong Kong Cemetery and a few other sites.
The gravestone near the front entrance at St John’s Cathedral on Garden Road
Yes, that is an actual burial. It is the grave of Private Ronald Douglas Maxwell of the Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps, service number 3176, killed on 23rd December 1941 during the Battle of Hong Kong. He was 22. His section was in Wanchai. After he was killed there was no time or safe way to reach a proper cemetery. His comrades wrapped the body and took it to the nearest patch of greenery with some cover, the grounds of St John’s Cathedral. A Jesuit priest said the prayers while aircraft were overhead. He was buried in a shallow grave under a tree. After the war it was decided the grave should stay. A stone was placed, and in 2010 the Commonwealth War Graves Commission added a proper headstone. There is also a marker for him at Sai Wan noting that his body lies at the cathedral. It is the only burial in the cathedral grounds.
Burial or cremation today in Hong Kong
Burial is still allowed, but it is limited and often temporary. The Food and Environmental Hygiene Department runs a small number of public cemeteries that still offer coffin burial: mainly Wo Hop Shek, plus Cheung Chau, Tai O and Mui Wo (the last three with local residency conditions). In public grounds a coffin burial is usually for six years, after which the remains must be exhumed. Chinese Permanent Cemeteries offer some longer-term or permanent options, but demand is high and many plots are time-limited.
Cremation is the practical choice for most people. In recent years the cremation rate has been around 95%. In 2023 there were 52,795 cremations and roughly 2,500 burials. In 2024 the figures were 49,812 cremations and about 2,185 burials. Government fees are straightforward: adult cremation HK$1,220 (about US$156), adult burial HK$3,190 (about US$409). Child rates are lower. The government actively promotes cremation and green burial because land is scarce.
What happens to the ashes
Traditional Chinese belief preferred burial so the body could “enter the soil for peace” and ancestors could be properly venerated. Feng shui of the grave site mattered. In practice, most families now accept cremation. Ashes are commonly placed in public or private niches (columbaria). Some are kept in a family altar or a golden tower (金塔) for bones or ashes. Green burial has grown: scattering in Gardens of Remembrance or at designated sea sites. In 2024 green burial accounted for roughly 18–20% of deaths. The government offers free scattering services.
Western and Christian practice has also shifted. Traditional preference was burial, but cremation is widely accepted. The Catholic Church lifted its ban in 1963, though it prefers ashes to be kept in a sacred place such as a cemetery or columbarium rather than scattered or turned into jewellery. Protestant practice is more flexible. In both cases the practical pressure of space in Hong Kong has pushed most families toward niches or scattering.
A few figures
Hong Kong Cemetery: roughly 7,000 recorded graves and memorials
Jewish Cemetery: roughly 378 graves
Sai Wan War Cemetery: around 1,528 burials plus memorials for more than 2,000
Stanley Military Cemetery: roughly 595 Commonwealth burials from the Second World War
Cremation rate in recent years: around 95%
Adult cremation fee: HK$1,220 (about US$156)
Adult burial fee: HK$3,190 (about US$409)
Green burial share of deaths (2024): roughly 18–20%
My thoughts on the subject
After more than 50 years here I see these places as part of the ordinary fabric of the city rather than something separate. The old cemeteries on the hillside below Stubbs Road are still worth visiting. They hold the early colonial story, the war dead, the merchants, the missionaries and the ordinary residents who stayed. The modern shift to cremation and niches is simply what a dense place has to do. Land that could hold the living is not given over to permanent graves on any large scale. The Chinese preference for proper ancestral care has adapted to niches and green options without disappearing. The Western side has done the same. What remains is the quiet fact that every city has to decide what to do with its dead, and Hong Kong’s answer is visible from the No.15 bus and in the columbaria that have appeared in the last few decades.
A personal story
Hong Kong has no law against keeping cremated ashes in a private home. The Food and Environmental Hygiene Department and the official after-death arrangements guidance both list “keeping at home” as one of the accepted options. The limit is not more than 10 sets of ashes, and each container should hold the ashes of only one person. Domestic premises are specifically exempted under the Private Columbaria Ordinance, so you do not need a licence or any official permission.
The ashes themselves are not regarded as a public health risk because they have already been processed at high temperature. There is no requirement to register them with anyone, and no rule that they must be moved to a columbarium or scattered within a certain time.
i lost my younger brother Tim when he was 33 in Hong Kong and for well over 20 + years he has sat in a green jade jar next to my desk at home and I would not have it any other way, Hong Kong was his home and that is that.
Plenty of families in Hong Kong do exactly what I have done. Some keep them for years on a shelf or in a cupboard; others later decide on a niche or green burial when it feels right. Building management rules can sometimes be fussy about what is stored in a flat, but that is a private contract matter between you and the landlord or management company, not a criminal or public-health offence.
So there you go.
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