Having established a settlement in a site they called "Tamão" in Hong Kong waters, Portuguese merchants began regularly trading in southern China.However, subsequent military clashes between China and Portugal led to the expulsion of all Portuguese merchants in the 1520s.Lantau Island was a salt production centre and smuggler riots occasionally broke out against the government.The first village school, Li Ying College, was established around 1075 in the modern-day New Territories by the Song dynasty.The Empire of Japan attacked the city as part of a greater offensive against the Allied Powers at the start of the Pacific War and held it under military occupation for the duration of the war, until the British resumed control of the colony in 1945.The entire territory, including ceded areas, was returned to China under the framework of the Sino-British Joint Declaration, signed by the United Kingdom and China in 1984 and marked with the transfer of sovereignty over Hong Kong at the end of the New Territories lease in 1997, when it became a special administrative region of the People's Republic of China.The town of Aberdeen was an initial point of contact between British sailors and local fishermen.Fragrance may refer to the sweet taste of the harbour's fresh water influx from the Pearl River estuary or to the incense from factories lining the coast of northern Kowloon.
Another theory is that the name originates from the Tanka, early inhabitants of the region; it is equally probable that a romanisation of the name in their dialect was used (i.e. Nevertheless, a number of institutions founded during the early colonial era still retain the single-word form, such as the Hongkong Post, Hongkong Electric, and the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation.Over 16,000 inhabitants of Xin'an County, which included Hong Kong, were forced to migrate inland; only 1,648 of those who had evacuated returned in subsequent years.Though maritime trade had previously been banned, after repopulation of the coast and final defeat of all rebels with Ming sympathies, the Kangxi Emperor lifted the trade prohibition in 1684 and allowed foreigners to enter Chinese ports.Trade with Europeans was more strictly regulated and became concentrated in the Pearl River Delta after establishment of the Canton System in 1757, which forbade non-Russian ships from northern Chinese ports and forced all commerce to be conducted solely in the port of Canton, just north of Hong Kong.While European demand for Chinese commodities like tea, silk, and porcelain was high, Chinese interest in European manufactured goods was comparatively negligible, creating a large trade imbalance between Qing China and Great Britain.