China: A small altar at the back of a house in the New Territories, Hong Kong (1987). Originally a sparsely populated area of farming and fishing villages, Hong Kong has become one of the world's most significant financial centres and commercial ports. It is the world's tenth-largest exporter and ninth-largest importer. Hong Kong became a colony of the British Empire after the Qing Empire ceded Hong Kong Island at the end of the First Opium War in 1842.