地名
What Hong Kong's place names mean, and what they were before.
網絡 The network, classified
Every MTR station typed — not by line, but by how its two names relate, and what that name is named after. Data already on disk; no new rows needed.
How the two names relate — 98 stations
74 transliteration + 11 translation = 85 that share sound or sense. 3 name two different things (金鐘/Admiralty is the flagship). 22 are named after water in a city that reclaimed much of it.
What the names are named after
名實 Does the name still mean it?
Every official Hong Kong place name carrying each element, tested against the Lands Department's own classification of what the place actually is. 2,714 names, counted at build time.
The water words are the ones that let go. 涌 names a stream and is classified as one three times in a hundred; 坑 eleven. 村 and 圍 — the settlement words — still mean what they say. A place called stream that the register calls a village is a name that outlived its water, which in a city built largely on reclamation is not a surprise so much as a receipt.
Universe & method
Universe. 2714 official bilingual Hong Kong place names — Lands Department GeoName PlaceName register, extract dated 2026-06-10, joined to GEO_PLACE_NAME on GEO_NAME_ID (100% join)
Method. substring match on the Traditional Chinese name field; the department's own PLACE_TYPE is the test of whether the element names what it says
Compiled 27 August 2026 · CSV
磚牆 The station wall
Ninety-eight stations, each drawn in the colour its own platform is tiled in. Not a map — the collection's objects, arranged by whatever you pick. Sort by colour and the network becomes a spectrum, which the official map can never be, because a map's job is topology.
98 shown
Gracious confidence, or an oil company
The MTR station whose name reads like a virtue and is actually a brand of American kerosene.
旺角 wong6 gok3The corner that got promoted
Mong Kok was named for a weed. Then somebody quietly upgraded it, and the English never caught up.
調景嶺 tiu4 ging2 leng5The ridge that was renamed for luck
Everyone tells the same story about this name. Here is the story, and here is the part of it that can actually be shown.
Notes from the collection
A short note when enough has accumulated to be worth sending — a few times a year, no more. No course, no lessons, nothing to buy.
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