survey and a further ICJ
ruling in 2003; the 1992 ICJ ruling advised a tripartite resolution
to a maritime boundary in the Gulf of Fonseca with consideration of
Honduran access to the Pacific; El Salvador continues to claim tiny
Conejo Island, not mentioned in the ICJ ruling, off Honduras in the
Gulf of Fonseca; Honduras claims the Belizean-administered Sapodilla
Cays off the coast of Belize in its constitution, but agreed to a
joint ecological park around the cays should Guatemala consent to a
maritime corridor in the Caribbean under the OAS-sponsored 2002
Belize-Guatemala Differendum; memorials and countermemorials were
filed by the parties in Nicaragua's 1999 and 2001 proceedings
against Honduras and Colombia at the ICJ over the maritime boundary
and territorial claims in the western Caribbean Sea - final public
hearings are scheduled for 2007

Illicit drugs:

transshipment point for drugs and narcotics; illicit producer of
cannabis, cultivated on small plots and used principally for local
consumption; corruption is a major problem; some money-laundering
activity

This page was last updated on 18 December, 2008

======================================================================

@Hong Kong

Introduction
Hong Kong

Background:

Occupied by the UK in 1841, Hong Kong was formally ceded by China
the following year; various adjacent lands were added later in the
19th century. Pursuant to an agreement signed by China and the UK on
19 December 1984, Hong Kong became the Hong Kong Special
Administrative Region (SAR) of China on 1 July 1997. In this
agreement, China promised that, under its "one country, two systems"
formula, China's socialist economic system would not be imposed on
Hong Kong and that Hong Kong would enjoy a high degree of autonomy
in all matters except foreign and defense affairs for the next 50
years.

Geography
Hong Kong

Location:

Eastern Asia, bordering the South China Sea and China

Geographic coordinates:

22 15 N, 114 10 E

Map references:

Southeast Asia

Area:

total: 1,092 sq km
land: 1,042 sq km
water: 50 sq km

Area - comparative:

six times the size of Washington, DC

Land boundaries:

total: 30 km
regional border: China 30 km

Coastline:

733 km

Maritime claims:

territorial sea: 3 nm

Climate:

subtropical monsoon; cool and humid in winter, hot and rainy from
spring through summer, warm and sun