Colonial-era symbols & relics still visible today

Beyond the street names already covered in our street names guide, a scattering of physical colonial-era symbols remain visible across the city, quietly preserved rather than removed after 1997.

Royal cypher postboxes

A number of older mail postboxes retain their original royal cypher markings from the colonial period rather than being replaced — a small, easily overlooked detail that some visitors specifically seek out.

Colonial-era buildings

Government House, the former residence of Hong Kong's colonial governors, still stands and is occasionally open to the public; other surviving colonial buildings function today as museums, courts or government offices, adaptively reused rather than demolished.

Crests and coats of arms

Some older buildings and structures retain carved colonial-era crests and coats of arms, generally left in place as a matter of heritage preservation rather than active political symbolism.

Why they've been kept

The "one country, two systems" framework covered in our history guide has generally allowed for heritage preservation of this kind, treating these as historical artefacts rather than requiring removal — visible evidence of the city's layered history rather than a contested current symbol.