Ghost Signs: Phantoms of the Past

Ghost signs are the fading painted advertisements that you often see on old brick walls and buildings. They're a window into a city's history, hinting at businesses that have long since disappeared. You can find these signs on the sides of buildings, above doorways, and in alleys - silent reminders of a past that still peeks through into our modern lives.

The HK Ghost Signs map is an historical archive of Hong Kong's ghost signs. The map itself has a striking visual style, with a black-and-white base map hinting at a vintage aesthetic - punctuated by bright pink markers highlighting the city's surviving ghost signs. Clicking on a marker on the map reveals a photograph and often some background information about the selected ghost sign’s origins.

Many of the mapped signs on HK Ghost Signs once belonged to shops and businesses that closed decades ago - their painted names and slogans surviving only as faint traces on stucco and brick. Collectively, these points form an alternative tour of the city, one that winds not along the main tourist routes, but through backstreets and forgotten facades. The map even includes 'star' and 'check-in' options for each mapped ghost sign, that make it very easy to create an itinery of signs you might want to visit and also the means to tick-off the signs once visited.

At the other end of the stylistic spectrum is the San Francisco Ghost Sign Mapping Project, which uses a straightforward Google My Map to plot nearly a thousand ghost signs across the Californian city. 

While its visual presentation is less polished than HK Ghost Signs, the project makes up for it with functionality. A handy menu lets you filter the map to show only certain types of signs, such as Building/Business signs or Ad/Brand signs. This makes it easy to focus on just one particular slice of the city’s painted history at a time.

Unrelated to ghost signs (but lovely nonetheless) - M+, Hong Kong’s museum for visual culture, has an interactive map of Neon Signs that are also dotted around the Chinese city. Bookmark both Hong Kong maps, and you may be able to find faded ghost signs sharing the same walls with neon - providing a striking clash of past and present in the same city space.

The Battle of Hong Kong

On the same morning that the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor (Sunday, December 7, 1941¹) they also attacked the British Crown colony of Hong Kong. The Hong Kong garrison (consisting of British, Indian and Canadian units, the Auxiliary Defence Units and Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps) managed to hold out for over two weeks. However on Christmas Day 1941 the colony finally surrendered to the Japanese.

Project’44 has created a number of maps which document the Battle of Hong Kong, with an emphasis on the involvement of the Canadian troops defense of the British colony. The Fall of Hong Kong includes a story map which provides a detailed chronology of the fall of Hong Kong to the Japanese.

As you scroll through Project '44's story map you can follow the progress of the battle on an interactive map of Hong Kong. The map sidebar provides a narrated history of the battle, illustrated with photos and videos from the Battle of Hong Kong, while the interactive map automatically pans and zooms to highlight the locations mentioned in the narrated tour.

 

The Battle of Hong Kong 1941 is another interactive map which recounts the spatial and chronological history of the Japanese capture of Hong Kong in the Second World War. The map is the work of the History Department at the Hong Kong Baptist University. The map itself provides both a spatial and temporal account of the Battle of Hong Kong. The map's timeline contains 51 different time-steps. This timeline allows you to follow the progress of the battle during the eighteen days it took the Japanese to take Hong Kong, showing the changing positions of platoon/squad/individual artillery pieces over the whole course of the Japanese invasion.

The map also includes a 'Faces of War' layer. This map layer provides a number of short biographies on some of the key participants in the Battle of Hong Kong. As a result of the battle over a thousand Allied lives were lost and over a thousand were reported missing. It is believed that casualties on the Japanese side were at least as high. 

After the Battle the Japanese remained in Hong Kong for three and half years. During that occupation it is estimated that at least 10,000 Hong Kong civilians were executed. Resistance groups of Cantonese and Han Chinese continued fighting until the end of the Japanese occupation. On August 15th, 1945, Japan officially surrendered and on the 30th August the British army returned to Hong Kong. 

The Japanese occupation of Hong Kong lasted for three years and eight months.

1. The invasion of Hong Kong actually began on the 8th of December, however this is due to the effect of the International Dateline, it was in reality on the same actual solar day as the 7th December attack on Pearl Harbor.

The World in Hong Kong

You can walk from Zurich to Rome in just over 1 hour. That is 'Zurich Avenue' and 'Crescendo Roma Viale' in Hong Kong (according to Google Maps it will take you 195 hours to walk from Zurich, Switzerland to Rome, Italy).

Rome and Zurich are not the only world locations which feature in the street names of Hong Kong. According to Asia’s World City: Around the World in One Day through Hong Kong's Street Names there are hundreds of locations in Hong Kong named for overseas locations. In this exploration of Hong Kong's street names designer Diana Pang has taken a deep dive into the history of Hong Kong's streets.

As a former British colony you will probably not be surprised to learn that lots of locations in Hong Kong are named after places in the UK. Hong Kong's historical importance as a major trading hub has also had an impact on many of the city's street names. Hong Kong's close trading ties in the 19th century with Indochina, can still be observed in street names which reference towns in Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and Japan.

You can explore the influence of world geography on Hong Kong's streets in two interactive maps in Diana's article. One map uses polylines to connect Hong Streets to their namesake origins around the world. The other map uses colored dots to show all of the Hong Streets named for overseas locations, with the color of the dots representing different countries. Click on a marker on the map and you can learn a little more about that individual street's etymology.

The Hong Kong Protests on Street View

Recently Google updated the Street View imagery on Google Maps in Hong Kong with panoramas captured in October 2019. Some of this new imagery clearly shows the graffiti, political posters and other physical evidence of the protest movement in Hong Kong. The result means that if you now explore Hong Kong on Street View you can see lots of pro-Democracy graffiti adorning the walls and roads of the city.

In June of 2019 wide-spread anti-government protests began in Hong Kong in reaction to a proposed new law which would allow China to extradite people in Hong Kong to the Chinese mainland. The bill was eventually withdrawn but by then the Chinese government's violent reaction to the demonstrations had turned the protests into a full-scale pro-democracy movement. Evidence of that protest movement can now be clearly seen on Google Maps Street View.

The Stand News has collected a number of examples of the pro-Democracy protests which can now be found on Hong Kong's Street View. In The Footprints of the 2019 Struggle on Street View the Stand News has embedded a number of these Street Views.

One example can be seen in the screenshot above which shows the new Street View for an exit of the Prince Edward Station. On the 31st August 2019 the Hong Kong police indiscriminately attacked passengers at this MTR station after a pro-democracy demonstration had been held elsewhere in the city. After the event this exit of Prince Edward Station was used as an unofficial memorial wall where citizens left flowers and messages of support for the victims of the attack. In the new Street View of the station exit you can clearly sees these messages and white flowers.

Google, like many other multi-national companies, doesn't have the best of records in standing up to Chinese censorship. It will be interesting to see how quickly China demands that this imagery is removed and whether Google will allow these images to remain on Google Maps. Please leave a comment below if you notice these Street View images being changed or being blanked out on Google Maps.

The Hong Kong Tear Gas Heat Map

Currently the HKmap.live map is showing a lot of activity around the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, where police have trapped hundreds of activists. The police have today been firing tear gas canisters at demonstrators who have gathered to protest at the police siege of the campus. Just yesterday the creators of the crowdsourced Hong Kong police tracking map, released a heat-map visualizing the locations where tear gas has been deployed in Hong Kong from August 5th to November 15th.

HKmap.live is a crowdsourced map which reports the live position of the police in Hong Kong. On the map different emojis are used to show the location of the police across the city. Registered users can use the Telegram messaging application to report locations where the police are currently using violence against protesters. The application is widely used by Hong Kong residents who wish to avoid the violent clashes between the police and protesters in the city.

The Tear Gas Deployed in Hong Kong static map is a crowdsourced map showing where the Hong Kong police have fired tear gas. It is important to note that the heat-map doesn't show the actual number of tear gas canisters fired by the police. The heat-map intensity is instead based on the numbers of HKmap.live users who have reported a tear gas canister fired at a location. It is still useful therefore in helping to identify the locations in Hong Kong which have witnessed the most violent clashes between the police and pro-democracy protesters.

Apple Bans Hong Kong Safety Map

Update (written on 10/9/2019):

Apple has now approved the HKmap.live application. Reportedly it has quickly become the best selling app in Hong Kong. The People's Daily newspaper is not happy with the decision. It has called the approval of HKmap.live as "unwise" and "imprudent". The newspaper has also ominously warned that the decision would "draw more turbulence", which suggests that Apple's interests in China could potentially come under threat.


Update to the Update (written on 10/10/2019):

Apple has once again bowed to pressure from the Chinese government and has once again banned the HKmap.live application. Apple says that "the app has been used to ... victimize residents in areas where they know there is no law enforcement". Obviously Apple has no way of knowing if this is true or not and must have been told that this is the case by the Chinese authorities. The Chinese authorities have their own reasons for wanting to stop Hong Kong residents from using HKmap.live. We can only guess at why Apple has taken this move to hamper pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong.


The following was written on 10/2/2019 (after Apple initially refused approval to HKmap.live):


Apple has banned an application which helps people in Hong Kong comply with police restrictions. By banning the HKmap.live interactive map Apple are denying help to citizens who wish to avoid locations in Hong Kong that are currently experiencing dangerous clashes between the police and pro-democracy demonstrators.

"Your app contains content - or facilitates, enables, and encourages an activity - that is not legal ... Specifically, the app allowed users to evade law enforcement."@Apple assume our user are lawbreakers and therefore evading law enforcement, which is clearly not the case.

— HKmap.live 全港抗爭即時地圖 (@hkmaplive) October 1, 2019

HKmap.live is a crowdsourced map which reports the live position of the police in Hong Kong. On the map different emojis are used to show the location of the police across the city. Registered users can use the Telegram messaging application to report locations where the police are currently using violence against protesters. The application is used widely by Hong Kong residents who wish to avoid inadvertently wandering into violent situations.

Last night 104 people were hospitalized by the Hong Kong police. The HKmap.live map can help citizens in Hong Kong from accidentally wandering into areas which have been flagged by the police for illegal assembly. The map also provides warnings about such things as the police firing tear gas in residential areas.

I'm sure Apple do not want Hong Kong residents to accidentally wander into violent situations and that they have not banned this map because they care more about losing business in China than the safety of innocent people. Presumably this is just an innocent mistake by Apple and the decision will soon be reversed.

Mapping Hong Kong Police in Real-Time

Protesters in Hong Kong have widely been using mobile technology in order to try and stay one step ahead of the police. For example the Telegram messaging app has proved very popular with demonstrators in Hong Kong. This is largely due to its security, the ability of users to permanently delete messages and the ease with which group chats can be established and used by groups of protesters.

Another new application being used by protesters in Hong Kong is a live real-time map being used to report the presence of the police. HKmap.live is a crowdsourced map which appears to be designed to report and show the live position of the police in Hong Kong. On the map different emojis are being used to show the location of the police across the city.

Using the map you can report the presence of the police at a location simply by clicking on that location on the map. However reporting privileges are password protected. The instructions appear to suggest that you need Telegram authentication to add data to the map. The instructions also suggest that there is some informal fact-checking taking place on reports and that suspicious users of the map will be banned from reporting to the map.

During some of the biggest protests in Hong Kong Telegram has suffered from distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks. Presumably the Chinese authorities have attempted to disrupt Telegram's service and take it offline in order to stop it being used by protesters. HKmap.live was released on August 4th and there were over 10,000 users on its first day. Perhaps its real measure of success will come when the Chinese authorities start trying to take it offline.

Hong Kong Land Reclamation

A new interactive map shows how Hong Kong has grown over the last 180 years through a steady process of land reclamation. Land reclamation in mountainous Hong Kong has been an important tool to expand the limited supply of usable land. Over 35% of the area of present day Hong Kong is land which has been reclaimed from the sea.

The History of Land Reclamation is a visualization of how land in Hong Kong has been reclaimed from the sea since the mid-Nineteenth Century. The blue line on the map shows the historic coastline of Hong Kong. The reclaimed land is colored on the map by the date of reclamation. The map also includes a time control slider which allows you to view time reclamation projects in the city by date. If you click on the 'visible layers' menu you can add historical photos of Hong Kong to the interactive map.


You can also explore Hong Kong's ever expanding coastline by exploring the old maps on Hong Kong Historic Maps. This collection of vintage maps of the city includes maps dating from the beginning of the Nineteenth Century. Hong Kong Historic Maps also includes the option to overlay the historic coastlines of Hong Kong on top of the vintage maps. These coastline overlays show the coastline of the city after major reclamation projects throughout the last 180 years.

100 Years of Hong Hong Street Views

HotelClub's Historic Hong Kong allows you to compare the modern bustling streets of Hong Kong with the same streets as they looked 100 years ago. The site uses Google Maps Street View and vintage photos of the city to allow you to show how the city of Hong Kong has changed over the last 100 years.

HotelClub worked with historian Mark Footer to identify some of Hong Kong's most interesting historic streets. The streets used in the site vary from Western Market to the bustling Kennedy Town. Select any of the streets from the main menu and you can a view a vintage photo of the street superimposed on top of the same view today, as captured by Google Maps Street View.

User Tip - If you are viewing Historic Hong Kong on a desktop then shrink your browser down a little. If you do this a swipe button will appear that allows you to swipe back and forth between the vintage photo and the modern day Street View. If you view Historic Hong Kong on a mobile device the swipe button will appear on all the photos anyway.

Neon Maps

M+, Hong Kong’s museum for visual culture, has released an interactive online exhibition celebrating Hong Kong’s neon signs. Neon Signs explores, maps and documents the city's wonderful neon signs.

The public can upload images of their own favorite neon signs from throughout Hong Kong and they will appear on the Neon Signs Google Map. The map itself uses the Styled Map feature and custom map markers to create a unique looking map. The markers use horizontal neon colored lines that stand-out on a black and grey themed map.

The black and grey map tiles also ensure that the colorful photos of the city's neon signs appear bright against the dark map background.

Hong Kong's Air Pollution Dashboard

The Hedley Environment Index is a real-time dashboard and Google Map of air pollution in Hong Kong.

The dashboard provides a continually updating estimate of the number of deaths in Hong Kong and the economic loss caused by air pollution in the city. The Google Map shows real-time readings of air pollutant concentration from monitors throughout Hong Kong. The markers on the map are color-coded and sized to reflect the current amount of air pollution at each location.

Users can select individual air pollution monitors on the map to view a historical line graph of the air pollution readings from the chosen monitor.

The Hong Kong Coffee Map

Cowome is a Google Map of cafes in Hong Kong that are great places to work. The map is aimed at freelancers and students and includes handy tips about WiFi, the quality of coffee and the best times to visit.

The Cowome map is user created, which means if you know of a good cafe to work in then you can add it to the map. It is also amazingly the first Google Maps based application from Hong Kong that we have featured on Google Maps Mania.

Street View for Hong Kong & Macau

As well as today's huge update to Street View in the UK Google have also unveiled Street View in Hong Kong and Macau.


The Macau Tower


Statue of Guan Yin, Macau


Miu Fat Buddhist Monastery


Western Market


Ting Kau Bridge

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