Islam in Hong Kong: history and Muslim population data

History of Islam in Hong Kong

It is a Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of Chinasince 1997, when it was returned by the UK after occupying it since 1841.It has an area of 1,104 sq km, comprising a peninsula from mainlandChina and over 260 islands. The main island of Hong Kong (41 sq km)was captured by the British in 1841, while the rest was ceded to theBritish in 1861. A map of Hong Kong is presented in Figure 2.6.2. Islamarrived at Hong Kong in the mid nineteenth century with the arrival ofthe British East India Company which brought along the first group ofMuslims into Hong Kong. With the outbreak of the Opium war, the Huipopulation of the Guangdong province headed for Hong Kong, thus theMuslim society was further developed. The 1871 census recorded thepresence of 151 Muslims among the non-Chinese population, who weremainly Indians. The 1911 Census recorded the presence of 1,779 Muslimsor 0.4% of the total population.

After WWII, the British brought workers from India and Indonesia,some of whom were Muslims. Towards the end of the twentieth century,the number of Muslims increased due to immigration from Muslimcountries. According to East Asia Barometer Survey (EAB), thepercentage of Muslims was 0.12% in 2001. The World Values Survey (WVS) on the other hand, shows an increase of the Muslim percentagefrom 0.08% in 2008, to 0.10% in 2013 and 0.29% in 2018.

Thus, assuming that the percentage of Muslims will increase by onethenth of a percentage point per decade; then the Muslim population isexpected to reach 42,000 or 0.6% by 2050 and 53,000 or 1.1% by 2100.

Historical Muslim population dataset for Hong Kong

The figures below are from the CoMPS historical dataset. Population values are expressed in thousands; 2100 is a modelled projection, not a present-day count.

For the full time series and visualisation, use the interactive map above.