The Southern District Board became Southern Provisional District Board after the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) was established in 1997 with the appointment system being reintroduced by Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa.

The Southern District Council has been controlled by the pro-Beijing camp since 1997, even though the Democratic Party maintained their presence in Wah Fu and some other constituencies.

It also bred its young party members Lo Kin-hei and Au Nok-hin who both took the Lei Tung constituencies away from long-held conservative independent councillors in the 2011 election.

In the 2019 elections, the pro-democrats achieved the majority in the council in a historic landslide victory brought by the pro-democracy protests.

Kelvin Lam Ho-por, a substitute for Joshua Wong who was disqualified from running, defeated Judy Chan Ka-pui of the New People's Party in South Horizons West.