The news was announced with great fanfare at the beginning of the year: the whole of Hong Kong Island’s harbourfront is now connected. For the very first time, you can walk all the way from Kennedy Town to Shau Kei Wan while enjoying a constant view of Victoria Harbour — 13 kilometres of seaside enjoyment.
That’s no small achievement, considering that less than a decade ago, nearly 60 percent of the harbourfront was inaccessible to the public. But just how nice are all of these new spaces? We set out to explore them. And what we discovered is that no two stretches of the harbourfront spaces are alike. Some are lively and comfortable; others are bleak and uninteresting, rewarding only for the harbour views, which are invariably beautiful.
“The connectivity is what’s important,” notes urban design advocate Paul Zimmerman, who sat for years on the Harbourfront Commission, an advisory body that helped push along the development of many new harbourfront spaces. “Now they’re working on the fine tuning and the details.”
With that in mind, we’re embarking on a three-part series about Hong Kong’s harbourfront spaces: the best, the rest and what’s coming next. Since we always like to look at the bright side, we’re starting with a purely subjective list of what we consider the five best promenades on both sides of the harbour, listed in geographical order from west to east and back again.
Agree with our assessment? Think we’re out to lunch? Let us know on social media @zolima_hongkong.
Cheung Sha Wan Promenade
Small but mighty: that’s what we love about this new space on the far western edge of Victoria Harbour. Opened in 2003, it runs for less than 350 metres, but it checks all the boxes of what makes for a very enjoyable waterfront space. Bookended by a meadow-like lawn on one side and a pier on the other, the promenade runs through an attractively designed open space with lots of greenery and a variety of different types of public seating.
Those factors alone aren’t enough: you need something to enliven the space. That’s where the Townplace West Kowloon complex comes in, with lots of harbourview retail spaces that are gradually filling up with cafés, bars and shops. There’s outdoor seating, too, officially maintained by Townplace but free for public use. Unlike so many promenades where there isn’t anything to do but look at the view, this new space already has a well-rounded personality.
Then there’s the view. To the west, you’ll see the elegant cable-stayed towers of the Stonecutters Bridge and the shipyards of Lai Chi Kok, filled with ferries and other vessels waiting for repairs. Just ahead is Stonecutters Island with its historic British-era naval base, now run by the People’s Liberation Army. Beyond that is a remarkable panorama of West Kowloon and Hong Kong Island. It’s not the up-close vista that we’re used to seeing from postcards but one whose slight remove allows you to appreciate the full heft of the island’s topography, with the silhouette of Stonecutters Island adding depth and drama. It’s unexpected — and gorgeous.
Rounding out the experience is a captivating pavilion on the pier that was designed by local architects New Office Workers. Made with an undulating steel canopy perched on slender columns, it has quickly become a destination for nearby residents to exercise or simply hang out on the amphitheatre-style steps at the end of the pier. Grab a snack or drink from Guru24 — an independent convenience store with lots of locally-made products — and settle in for a spectacular sunset.
WestK Art Park
The views from West Kowloon are so amazing, the only thing the architects who designed its harbourfront promenade needed to do was to not screw it up. Easier said than done. And yet, thanks to a unique combination of factors, they managed to create what is arguably the very best space along Victoria Harbour.
Years ago, after an enormous chunk of the harbour was filled in for Hong Kong’s largest land reclamation scheme, a temporary promenade was designed by a team of government architects led by Raymond Fung. It made the most of a limited budget with a wooden boardwalk, grassy areas perfect for picnicking and an eye-catching row of illuminated columns made from corrugated plastic.
It was an odd, slightly scruffy space — but a lot of memorable things happened there between its inauguration in 2005 and its redevelopment in 2018. There were art projects like Kacey Wong’s 2010 performance “Paddling Home,” in which he launched a boat that looked like a miniature Hong Kong apartment. Freespace got its start along the promenade, infusing it with music and an easygoing energy every month of the cool season. It’s also where Clockenflap scaled up from a modest local music event to the international festival it is today.
But if there wasn’t a festival happening and you didn’t bring a day’s worth of supplies for a picnic, there just wasn’t much to do in West Kowloon. (If you’re interested in what this original space looked like, about 400 metres of it has been preserved at the northern end of the park.) Luckily, the new harbourfront spaces designed by Dutch landscape architects West8 in collaboration with Hong Kong firms DLN and ACLA strike a fine balance between providing lively commercial spaces and spots where you can just relax and enjoy the view.
They managed to do this by keeping things simple: the colour palette is grey, the materials are sedate (paving stones and concrete) and the spaces open and spacious, whether it’s the hard-paved promenade or grassy areas dotted with a few judiciously planted trees. No flash, no clutter, no Instagrammable installations: just an attractively functional space with lots of places to sit and appreciate the sweeping vista.
Sometimes, it’s what you leave out that matters the most. When you visit West Kowloon, you’ll notice it lacks something that is so ubiquitous elsewhere, you hardly notice anymore: a fence. Hong Kong’s streets are lined by hundreds of kilometres of grey metal fences, and while the barriers along many harbourfront promenades are more attractive, they’re still there, blocking access to the water and obstructing the view.
West Kowloon had an ugly wire fence when its temporary promenade opened in 2005. But the architects of the revamped harbourfront fought hard to remove the barrier, replacing it with a low concrete ridge on which you can sit. The result is a gloriously unobstructed view and a real feeling of proximity to the water sloshing up against the shoreline rubble. It’s also handy for the fishers who like to perch on those big rocks; before, they had to scale the fence to get close enough to fish.
Similarly, you might notice something about the lighting. Whereas many waterfront spaces in Hong Kong are flooded with light from an army of lampposts, there was clearly great thought put into keeping West Kowloon relatively dark. Ambient light from the city’s spectacular skyline does most of the work and the promenade feels all the more intimate for it.
Of course, design only goes so far: how a space is managed is just as important. Here, West Kowloon has the distinction of being run by the West Kowloon Cultural District Authority (WKCDA), a para-public organisation free from the many bureaucratic constraints of the Leisure and Cultural Services Department (LCSD), which runs most parks and recreational spaces in Hong Kong.
This gives the WKCDA a certain freedom and flexibility in the way it oversees the Art Park. You can bring your dog, you can ride a bicycle, you can play musical instruments, you can toss around a ball on the grass — all things that are banned in many LCSD parks. And it means there’s an abundance of places to get a snack or a drink because the WKCDA doesn’t need to jump through special hoops to set up a food kiosk. When the new ferry began operating between Central and West Kowloon, the WKCDA used shipping containers to create a pop-up cluster of restaurant and bar stalls next to the pier, quickly injecting a bit of dynamism into one of the more forlorn parts of the promenade.
That’s not to say the WKCDA’s approach has been perfect. Far from it. Faced with financial pressures, West Kowloon often feels over-programmed and over-commercialised: there are too many events that seem driven by marketing rather than culture. Last year’s Christmas market attracted so many people, the police required crowd control measures that fenced off nearly the entire harbourfront, making you wonder why you should even bother visiting.
But for the most part, and for most of the year, it’s a success: 1.4 kilometres of harbourfront space that can be as exciting or as relaxing as you want.
Kwun Tong Promenade
Your gossiping aunties have probably heard about the Kwun Tong Promenade — and not for good reasons. It’s the “Lan Kwai Fong of Gen Z,” a place where Hong Kong’s teenagers go to party, fool around and occasionally get into a brawl. But before you start imagining some 21st century version of Young and Dangerous, or maybe Rebel Without a Cause, know this: the bad reputation is just a lot of social media hype. If young people like hanging out on the Kwun Tong waterfront, it’s because it’s simply a fun, attractive and easily accessible space.
Opened in stages since 2010 on the site of a former recycling depot, the kilometre-long promenade runs parallel to the Kwun Tong flyover, with views of the Kai Tak typhoon shelter, the cruise terminal and the skyline of Hong Kong Island beyond that. There’s a wooden boardwalk, a lawn, bleacher-style seating, water features and some architectural installations that reference the area’s industrial heritage. So far, so pleasant — but what really levels the space up, and what draws all the kids to hang out here, is what’s underneath the flyover.
Similar to how the WKCDA manages West Kowloon, this area is run by the Energizing Kowloon East Office, which has turned the sheltered space into an open-air cultural and recreational space. There are concerts and other events, but also a lot of free space for skateboarding, dancing and general loitering — with food and drink stalls for when you get hungry. So don’t believe the news: this is a place for good old-fashioned fun.
East Coast Boardwalk
When this promenade opened in 2025, it was heralded as the “final piece of the puzzle” — the missing link that made it possible to walk along the entire Hong Kong Island harbourfront. And its significance shouldn’t be understated.
Not so long ago it seemed like the people of North Point would never again gain access to their harbourfront. What had once been a shore lined by beaches and amusement parks had been walled off by development and the Island Eastern Corridor, a massive expressway built on pylons over the water in the 1980s. Then, in 2009, the Harbourfront Commission came up with the unlikely idea of building a boardwalk underneath the expressway.
It was one of those ideas that sounds nice on paper but is eventually discarded due to cost and complexity. Except, surprisingly, the government actually went for it. 16 years and HK$1.7 billion later, we now have what is certainly Hong Kong’s most unusual waterfront space: a 2.2-kilometre deck perched above the waves of the harbour, sheltered from the elements by an eight-lane motorway.
And it’s actually a nice space. Designed by LWK & Partners, there is room for runners and cyclists, as well as a more leisurely path on the water’s edge lined by public seating. The views are incredible, the noise of the traffic overhead is muffled and the shelter provided by the roadway will be a blessing in the hot and rainy summer months. There are even public toilets.
We aren’t as keen on the swing bridge and glass floor in the second phase of the boardwalk, which opened at the end of 2025 between the North Point ferry piers and Quarry Bay. They seem like an unnecessary gimmick whose popularity has spooked the boardwalk’s managers, who have hired staff to control access. (Unlike the rest of the boardwalk, which is open around the clock, these two features are cordoned off at night.) Still, that’s a minor quibble for an unexpected and unusual new public space.
Central Ferry Piers
Sometimes the best things happen by accident. When the ferry piers to the outlying islands were relocated to the edge of newly reclaimed land in the early 2000s, it was purely functional: a procession of boxy piers lining a landscaped 800-metre-long promenade with public seating and banyan trees. And that’s still what it is, at least on paper. But over the past two decades, the piers have evolved into one of the most lively harbourfront spots in Hong Kong.
It’s a bit like a train station, but on the water. There’s a constant churn of people coming and going, whether they’re on their way to or from the islands or Kowloon, or simply walking along the harbour. People are always hanging out, sipping a drink as they wait for their ferry or meeting up with friends to enjoy the view. People are fishing alongside the water (apparently the turbulence caused by the constant ferry traffic attracts certain types of small fish that are delicious in soup). In a matter of seconds, you might spot a pack of joggers, a troupe of mainland Chinese tourists posing for photos, a gaggle of schoolkids heading back to the islands, hikers returning from far-off adventures and office workers lingering over a cheeky pint in a plastic cup.
All of this is enabled not only by the ferry services but the affordable retail spaces inside each of the piers. It can be hard to find a place to eat or drink along most of the harbourfront, but at the piers, there is a whole galaxy of independently-run kiosks selling street snacks and takeaway drinks. Fancy some curried pork skin? Head to Pier 5. Yakitori with a cold beer? Pier 7. Gin and tonic? Pier — well, almost all of the piers. It turns out ferries attract a boozy crowd.
The eclectic atmosphere is matched by a hodgepodge of different spaces. Originally, the promenade along the piers was lined by pink tiled steps, ledges and the occasional bench. Not the most comfortable places to sit but they did the trick. In recent years, however, the government has renovated portions of the promenade, adding more seating and converting the palette to a more soothing grey. There’s also a new plaza on the eastern edge of the piers where you can sit around the anchor of the Seawise Giant, a Hong Kong-registered ship that was once the world’s largest. (The plaza is an initiative of the Hong Kong Maritime Museum, which is located inside Pier 8.)
This isn’t an elegant, serene or masterfully designed harbourfront space — but it’s dynamic, accessible and always interesting, which is exactly why we love it.