Yau Ma Tei is a phonetic transliteration of the name 油麻地 (originally written as 油蔴地) in Cantonese.

Hence, Yau Ma Tei can be interpreted to mean either "oil-sesame field" or "oil and jute ground".

To its west is Victoria Harbour and its east the hilly region of Ho Man Tin.

It was mentioned that a Chinese burial ground was assigned at a mile northeast of a village of Yau-ma-Tee at 2 December 1871.

In 1839, Qing official Lin Zexu ordered the construction of a fortification in the area to defend against possible British attacks.

When the First Opium War broke out, the fortification, along with another fort in Tsim Sha Tsui, saw action against British forces during the Battle of Kowloon.

Before the ceding of Kowloon to the British in 1860, Yau Ma Tei was a beach and a bay gathering many Tanka fishermen.

Its water remains a harbour for fishermen after several times of reclamation by the Hong Kong Government.

The Yau Ma Tei Typhoon Shelter became an exotic water area where restaurants on boats offered dishes of indigenous seafood.

Inland, the reclamation became the residential area for the ever-increasing Chinese population, with retail shops on the street level.

Along Waterloo Road is the century-old Fruit Market; its adjacent Yaumati Theatre was once the largest in Kowloon.

This became Prosperous Garden (Chinese: 駿發花園), an "Urban Improvement Scheme" estate[7] in Public Square Street[8] Phase 1, including Block 1, 2 and 5, was completed in the site in 1991.