[citation needed] Hong Kong's Immigration Department estimated that there were 35,000 British citizens[3] living in the Special Administrative Region eight months after the handover of sovereignty in 1997.
The British captured Hong Kong Island in 1841 during the First Opium War and were officially ceded the territory in 1842 under the Treaty of Nanking.
Over the next 150 years Britons came to Hong Kong in relatively large numbers—many to work in the colony's administration, trading houses, and merchant banks—along with other Europeans and Americans.
However, in those years many young people from the United Kingdom went to Hong Kong to take up unskilled jobs (e.g., as doorpersons or in food service).
[7][8] Among the 33,733 citizens of the United Kingdom living in Hong Kong, 19,405 are of some European ethnicity, 6,893 are Chinese, 2,337 are Indian, 1,047 are Pakistani, 829 are Nepalese, 273 are other Asians, 227 are Filipino, 98 are Thai, 40 are Japanese, and 40 are Indonesian.