It runs from the junction of Electric Road and Tin Chong Street in Fortress Hill to meet King's Road in Quarry Bay, near Hong Kong Funeral Home [yue].

Completed in 1933, the road was named after the Dutch shipping firm Koninklijke Java-China Paketvaart Lijnen (爪哇輪船公司; known outside the Netherlands as Royal Interocean Lines, RIL)–itself named for the island of Java in Indonesia (then Netherlands East Indies)—which had its operational headquarters there for much of the 20th century.

The company provided sea routes between Hong Kong, Shanghai, Jakarta, Medan, Surabaya, Makassar and elsewhere.

The road name is also associated with the sugar importing empire of Kwok Chun Yeung [id] (郭春秧; Kwik Djoen Eng in Hokkien; after whom Chun Yeung Street was named),[1][2] across whose reclaimed land (between Tin Chong Street[3] and Tong Shui Road, the current water's edge and King's Road) it runs.

[4] There was a Java Road Elementary School near the North Point Ferry Pier; it has since closed.