The Eastern District (Chinese: 東區) is one of the 18 districts of Hong Kong. It had a population of 587,690 in 2006. The district has the second highest population while its residents have the third highest median household income among 18 districts.
It is located in the north east of Hong Kong Island and includes the areas of the eastern portion of Causeway Bay, Tin Hau, Fortress Hill, North Point, Quarry Bay, Shau Kei Wan, Heng Fa Chuen, and Chai Wan.
Originally a backwater of fishing villages, quarries and dockyards, the Eastern District is now mostly residential, with some industrial areas and several large shopping malls. While most Home Ownership Scheme and public housing estates are located from Sai Wan Ho to Chai Wan, large private housing estates are located within the eastern district, such as Taikoo Shing, Kornhill and Heng Fa Chuen. A commercial hub has been developed from the former industrial areas in western part of Quarry Bay. Hotels and commercial buildings are also developed near Fortress Hill along the coast.
In the past the district was linked by a single King's Road, which was notoriously congested during peak hours, this had largely been solved by the constructions of the Island Eastern Corridor, the Island Line within the MTR rapid transit system in the 1980s and it contains the long-historied tram line that stretches from Shau Kei Wan towards other districts near the sea shore.
Famous quotes containing the words eastern and/or district:
“All the morning we had heard the sea roar on the eastern shore, which was several miles distant.... It was a very inspiriting sound to walk by, filling the whole air, that of the sea dashing against the land, heard several miles inland. Instead of having a dog to growl before your door, to have an Atlantic Ocean to growl for a whole Cape!”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Most works of art, like most wines, ought to be consumed in the district of their fabrication.”
—Rebecca West (1892–1983)