Other 'Hong Kongs'

N7Buck

Banned
Every city in (north of Mexico) North America and Australasia. It's easy to forget that Boston, New York, Sidney and Melbourne were built from nothing, and became major cities within a century.
 
Penang is the sister city of Singapore but wasn't given independence like Singapore despite being an island, having an overwhelmingly non-Malay/Muslim population and being a British Crown Colony. It easily could be independent
Penang and Malacca both, if the remains of the Straits Settlements hadn't been merged in with Malaya/Malaysia... Be interesting if Singapore, Malacca, and Penang had remained in some sort of loose confederation and become the "Tri-Cities" of the Straits....
 
Penang and Malacca both, if the remains of the Straits Settlements hadn't been merged in with Malaya/Malaysia... Be interesting if Singapore, Malacca, and Penang had remained in some sort of loose confederation and become the "Tri-Cities" of the Straits....
It could be a very interesting rivalry if they were all split. Malacca seems a lot less likely since it is attached to entirely to land, Penang atleast has an island.

Now another place that couldve got the Hong Kong treatment: Lagos.
 
It could be a very interesting rivalry if they were all split. Malacca seems a lot less likely since it is attached to entirely to land, Penang atleast has an island.

Now another place that couldve got the Hong Kong treatment: Lagos.
Nigeria wasn't rich enough for most of its history to be worth it.
 
And since this is alternate history : a slightly different Japanese opening in the 1850's and a slightly different Meiji revolution, we could have Nagasaki still being a Dutch/Portuguese controlled city-state where entrepreneurial Japanese would go to start all the businesses that back home would run afoul of the Emperor's thought police.

Alternative options: Okinawa or Tsushima.
 
It could be a very interesting rivalry if they were all split. Malacca seems a lot less likely since it is attached to entirely to land, Penang atleast has an island.

Now another place that couldve got the Hong Kong treatment: Lagos.

Wouldn't the rivalry between the three actually negatively impact Singapore? I mean its success and wealth would likely be divided by the presence of a relatively close rival(s) that offers much of the same that made Singapore so much more successful than its neighbours?

If you think of Monaco, Andorra, Liechtenstein etc in Europe, the reason why they are so rich is in part because they are relatively rare and there is enough wealthy people to divide between them. However if there were 20 similar micro nations of these in Europe, Monaco etc would likely be not as wealthy.
 
1) If the British take the city of New Orleans in the War of 1812, they could probably hold it and the immediate area around it as Americans continue moving west.

2) Port Said on the Suez if the Canal Zone is kept by the British instead of being given to Egypt.

3) Have the British build a city/oil refineries on the island of Hormuz in the straits of Hormuz during the 1930s.
 
I wonder if Western countries could take the entire coastline of China, basically making it a landlocked state.

In that case there might be several cities like HK just for the British
 
Trinidad, has energy resources, outside the hurricane belt, could become a multilingual financial ctr, especially if Miami doesn't.
 
1) If the British take the city of New Orleans in the War of 1812, they could probably hold it and the immediate area around it as Americans continue moving west.
Britain would never do that because the massive amount of antagonism generated by possession of the city would almost certainly cause another war in the future. If Britain does well enough where control of Louisiana is possible they're either going to force America to buy it from Spain (a roundabout indemnity), or just retrocede it back to Spain.

If you want Britain to gain it they need to take it from Spain/France before America gets there.
 
I must say that Hong Kong became the Hong Kong we know because of the very particular timeline of events that took place to create it, in that way.

These conditions include several factors like a large and fairly advanced/advancing Civilization like China that has a production of exotic products, which are of huge export value, and a fairly unified empire that would be able to give it to the British, so easily and after the particular wars and economic collapse that happened, which may not be possible in a more disunited setting, or in absence of Opium wars. Plus the location matters, a lot. These conditions are not replicable, that easily. Maybe you can have "More Singapores" but I don't think, Hong Kongs.
 
I wonder if Western countries could take the entire coastline of China, basically making it a landlocked state.

In that case there might be several cities like HK just for the British
There were a number of European Concessions in China most came after the Boxer the rebellion but Portugal had control of Macau like Britain and Hong Kong. Shanghai & Tianjin were the two major cities split among the outside powers but some like Germany & Italy leased territory on Kiautschou Bay as a naval and trading port investing millions in infrastructure until WWI.
 
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