It was formally established in 2008 and also includes the historical Speicherstadt area, which since 2015 is an UNESCO World Heritage Site with the adjacent Kontorhausviertel.

Just over four years earlier, on 1 January 2003, the area was removed from the duty-free zone of Hamburg to allow construction of housing and associated infrastructure.

However, the term HafenCity is primarily used to refer to the area of city development, whereas Speicherstadt is seen as a separate quarter.

[citation needed] The land of the former island of Grasbrook, upon which the HafenCity is built, lay until the beginning of the 19th century outside of the city gates.

Outside the city walls, the boggy areas were used as meadows, and the western end of Große Grasbrook was used a place for executions, including those of pirates Klaus Störtebeker and the Victual Brothers.

In 1872, the Hamburg Hanover railway station (de) was constructed on Lohseplatz east of the Magdeburger Hafen.

The Kehrwieder and Wandrahm residential quarters were demolished in 1883 to allow construction of the customs and duty-free zone of the Port of Hamburg, displacing around 20,000 residents.

Around the start of the 20th century, the first heated fruit storehouses were constructed, and in 1928, a refrigerated herring warehouse designed by Fritz Schumacher was built.

[citation needed] The city of Hamburg built the Elbphilharmonie, a new concert hall on top of an old warehouse, as HafenCity's centerpiece.

While dikes were initially considered to shield the islands from storm surges, it would have been impossibly expensive and taken away from the view.

Instead, there are strict flood-protection rules in places within the special development zone, such as requiring new roads and public spaces to be built on sand terraces over 25 feet (7.6 m) above the normal high-tide line.