Sham Shui Po District

Places of interest

Sham Shui Po District covers northwestern Kowloon. It takes in Sham Shui Po itself, Shek Kip Mei, Cheung Sha Wan, Lai Chi Kok and Mei Foo, plus the newer homes on the waterfront around Nam Cheong and West Kowloon’s northern reclamation.

Old Sham Shui Po is all compact blocks and specialist shopping streets around its MTR station. Inland, Shek Kip Mei is known for public housing and old buildings put to cultural use. Cheung Sha Wan and Lai Chi Kok grew up on industry and trade, and at the western end Mei Foo is one large estate landscape.

Shek Kip Mei Park and the Nam Shan breakfast stalls

Early in the morning, Shek Kip Mei Park fills with local people exercising and practising tai chi. Join them, then walk to the Nam Shan estate shopping centre for congee and yau char kwai at one of its tented cafés.

The street markets around Pei Ho Street

Head to the markets around Pei Ho Street for bargain toys, clothes and electronics, with small noodle restaurants tucked behind the stalls.

Mei Ho House

Start the public housing story at Mei Ho House. It shows how early resettlement worked and how families lived with it. Because the building survives, you get a sense of scale that numbers cannot give. More in our Heritage and museums guide.

The Jockey Club Creative Arts Centre

In a former Shek Kip Mei factory, the Jockey Club Creative Arts Centre fills an old industrial building with new creative work. Studios and programmes change, so check what is open to the public; not every workspace will let you in.

Lei Cheng Uk Han Tomb Museum

Lei Cheng Uk Han Tomb Museum takes you much further back in time. The tomb is protected, so you see it through the museum and from set viewing points rather than walking around inside.

Jao Tsung-I Academy

Jao Tsung-I Academy fills a restored historic compound near the western side of the district. With its cultural uses and hillside setting, it is a calm foil to the market streets: history, away from the crowded pavements.

Lai Chi Kok Park and its Lingnan Garden

Lai Chi Kok Park and its Lingnan Garden give you another outdoor break near Mei Foo, and a reminder that this district is more than shops and housing blocks.

Sham Shui Po’s small temples

Sham Shui Po’s small temples bring faith and community history into a street walk. They belong to the streets around them, so go quietly and let worshippers come first.

Shopping and food

Apliu Street is the famous one: electronics, parts, second-hand goods and all sorts of practical odds and ends.

Computer malls around the old town centre are another draw. For fabric, buttons, beads and other sewing supplies, try the streets tied to the district’s textile trade. Cheung Sha Wan Road is a key street for clothing.

How Sham Shui Po came to be

The Lei Cheng Uk Han Tomb shows that people lived here long before the modern city. Found in 1955, it gave a district now better known for twentieth-century housing and trade a far older past.

Industry grew in the early twentieth century, and above all in Hong Kong’s postwar factory boom. Textiles, garments and other trades gave people jobs and shaped the shopping streets. Specialist suppliers survive as links to that world, even where the making has moved away.

The Shek Kip Mei fire of 1953 was a turning point in Hong Kong’s public housing history. The resettlement programme that followed changed the landscape and set the pattern for the large-scale housing seen in many districts. Mei Ho House is a key survivor from that first estate.

Later came more housing, more industry and more reclaimed land. Mei Foo Sun Chuen became a major model of the private estate, while Cheung Sha Wan and Lai Chi Kok kept large industrial premises. More recently, old buildings have found cultural and commercial uses, and new towers have changed the western waterfront.

The joy of this history is that you can still walk through it. A tomb museum, an early resettlement block and a reused factory could hardly be more different, yet each tells part of how people settled and worked here.

The resettlement block and the factory met urgent, practical needs. Their new cultural life lets you in, but the work and home lives they once held are why they matter.

People and economy

The 2021 Population Census recorded 431,090 residents in Sham Shui Po District, a count from that year rather than a current estimate. They live in public estates, older private flats and newer blocks, at very different prices and standards.

The older neighbourhood is linked with low-income households and housing pressure, but the district is far from uniform; Mei Foo and newer private estates add other kinds of home. Schools, clinics, markets and public services serve these communities, while shoppers from outside swell the crowds.

Trade, both shop and wholesale, is still the heart of Sham Shui Po, with electronics, computer goods, textiles, clothes and sewing trims on show everywhere. These shops serve working buyers as well as visitors, so their displays and hours follow the needs of real trade.

Old factory buildings around Cheung Sha Wan and Lai Chi Kok now house offices, trading firms, storage, creative businesses and other trade. Local services, schools, food businesses and property work keep the people who live here going.

Places such as the Jockey Club Creative Arts Centre add creative work to the mix. The link between making and selling has changed, yet a design studio and a long-standing materials supplier may still sit in the same chain of work.

Getting there and around

With several lines to choose from, pick your station by what you want to see. Sham Shui Po suits Apliu Street and the older shopping area; Shek Kip Mei suits parts of the housing and arts story; Mei Foo suits the western park and nearby cultural sights.

Main roads run from urban Kowloon through to Kwai Chung and the western New Territories. Around the industrial buildings, delivery traffic can make the pavements less pleasant.

For fares, cards and the wider network, see Getting around Hong Kong.