As its Cantonese name suggests, it was formerly a bay with a long sandy beach. It spans roughly from today's
Butterfly Valley Road at the west to
Yen Chow Street at the east. The beach was a gathering place for many
Tanka fishermen before its development. The original shoreline approximates the present
Castle Peak Road and Un Chau Street. Inland, villages of Om Yam, Ma Lung Hang, Pak Shu Lung,
So Uk, Li Uk, Wong Uk and others sparsely occupied the whole bay of Cheung Sha Wan. Rivers from
Beacon Hill,
Crow's Nest and
Piper's Hill formed a long plain behind the beach. Farmlands filled between villages. A larger river ran in
Butterfly Valley separating Cheung Sha Wan and
Lai Chi Kok. A
sandbar was found at the mouth of its
estuary. The
Lei Cheng Uk Han Tomb is located in Cheung Sha Wan, and dates from AD 25 - 220. It is the oldest known constructed structure in Hong Kong, and demonstrates that early Chinese civilisation had spread to Hong Kong by 2,000 years ago. At the time of the 1911 census, the population of Cheung Sha Wan was 653. The number of males was 496. Before
World War I, two ends, Lai Chi Kok and Sham Shui Po, of Cheung Sha Wan had been reclaimed. The former was for military use and the later emerged as a new town north of
Tai Kok Tsui. In April 2006, a total of 580 unused shells from the
Japanese occupation of Hong Kong were found buried at
Tonkin Street in Cheung Sha Wan. The residents were temporarily evacuated and the shells were detonated safely. The bay of Cheung Sha Wan was reclaimed in several phases in the twentieth century. The last reclamation in 1990s extended the area close to
Stonecutters Island. The shipbuilding and repair industries on the old shore were moved to near the island and the sites were replaced by some
private housing estates constructed in the early 2000s. ==Economy==