The Two Stone Plaques at the South Gate

In 1847 the Qing government built Kowloon Walled City as a military outpost for coastal defence. It was a garrison town rather than the dense urban maze that later became famous. Granite walls, gates and watch points gave the settlement a defensive outline, while its position near the harbour tied it to a wider coastal system. The name can make the place sound like a single, unchanging object; in fact, its uses and built form altered as political control and the surrounding city changed.

During the Japanese Occupation, the wall was torn down and its material used to extend Kai Tak Airport. That detail puts two famous Kowloon histories in direct contact: the fortified town disappeared partly into the ground on which aviation infrastructure expanded. The airport’s growth did not simply replace one landmark with another. Stone from the defensive perimeter entered a new landscape of runways and reclamation, while memories of the walled city continued in photographs, family accounts and later public debate.

When the government decided in 1987 to demolish the remaining buildings and replace the site with a park, archaeological work accompanied the clearance. Foundations of the South and East gates were particularly well preserved. Among the discoveries were two stone plaques inscribed “South Gate” and “Kowloon Walled City.” The government chose to keep the South Gate remains in place for public display; they were declared monuments in 1996. The stones name the threshold itself, giving visitors a clear point from which to imagine the former entrance.

A park asks visitors to move through open paths and planted space; an archaeological remnant asks them to slow down and distinguish foundation from reconstruction. The gate stones establish a precise point of passage and preserve its official name, anchoring the vanished town within the park. That modest survival is enough to connect a present-day landscape to a military settlement, then to demolition and archaeological preservation. At the South Gate, the city’s history is not rebuilt as a complete scene. It is held in a pair of labelled stones and the foundations around them.