July 1, 1997

Handover of Hong Kong

British administration ends and the Hong Kong SAR is established

The ceremony began under British rule at 11:30 p.m. and ended under Chinese sovereignty after midnight, with about 4,000 invited guests inside the convention centre.

Midnight, 1 July 1997

The joint British-Chinese handover ceremony began at 11:30 p.m. on 30 June 1997 in the Grand Foyer of the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre Extension. About 4,000 invited guests attended and roughly 6,500 local and overseas media representatives covered the events.

Immediately before midnight the British and colonial Hong Kong flags were lowered; at midnight the flags of the People's Republic of China and the new Special Administrative Region were raised. Under the Sino-British Joint Declaration, China resumed the exercise of sovereignty and the United Kingdom restored Hong Kong to the People's Republic of China with effect from 1 July 1997.

Sworn in at half past one in the morning

At approximately 1:30 a.m., President Jiang Zemin formally declared the HKSAR established. Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa, senior officials, councillors and judges were then sworn in.

The Provisional Legislative Council held its first HKSAR session immediately afterwards and enacted the Reunification Ordinance. Chris Patten, the last governor of British Hong Kong, had left Government House on 30 June.

The garrison moved at dawn

Defence responsibility changed at midnight too, with flag ceremonies at the barracks. An advance element of 509 PLA soldiers had entered at 9 p.m. on 30 June, and the main body of the People's Liberation Army Hong Kong Garrison came in at 6 a.m. to occupy 14 barracks.

By morning the colonial government and governorship no longer existed and the Basic Law was in force. The HKSAR sat directly under China's central government, with foreign affairs and defence reserved to Beijing.

Sources

Researched 23 Aug 2026 5 sources 2 audit passes, 1 issue open

How this was checked

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What the sources leave uncertain

The legal change took effect precisely at midnight on 1 July, but the central ceremony began on 30 June and therefore straddled both dates.
Terminology is politically sensitive. The binding Joint Declaration uses two formulations: China would 'resume the exercise of sovereignty,' while Britain would 'restore Hong Kong' to China. 'Transfer of sovereignty' and 'handover' are common descriptive terms.
Official accounts conventionally describe the event as ending 156 years of British administration, although British rule was interrupted by the Japanese occupation of 1941–1945.