Yuen Long – a fact file

• Yuen Long is home to some 600,000 people, making it the third most populated of Hong Kong’s 18 districts.

• It was probably settled around 3,500 years ago. In ancient times, Yuen Long developed a reputation as an agricultural centre, especially for salt and pearls. Even today, there are a small handful of oyster-farming families in the area.

• Until a century or so ago, Yuen Long was known as Un Long. • The area has Hong Kong’s largest alluvial plain at 144 square kilometres, about the same size as Lantau. • Yuen Long New Town was developed in the 1970s.