Unlike most traditional villages of New Territories, Ap Chau is an island inhabited only in modern times because of geopolitics and regilion. Still uninhabited in the 1920s, Ap Chau is located near the fish-abundant Double Haven and Mirs Bay. This attracted staging fishing vessels and the numbers continued to rise after WWII.
With the change of regime after 1949 and tension rising, the Sha Tau Kok True Jesus Church, originally located at the Chinese side of Sha Tau Kok, had to be relocated. As much of the Church’s followers were boat people of Double Haven and Mirs Bay, the Church decided to relocate to Ap Chau, and build a wooden church with limited resources. Such relocation attracted more and more boat people to settle around the island.
From the 1950s, the colonial government, Cooperative for American Remittances to Europe, the True Jesus Church and Ap Chau villagers built the fishermen village, water supply facilities, the Fishermen’s Children Primary School, and a new chapel, to improve the living conditions of fishermen who moved ashore. In the 1960s, Ap Chau villagers, like other villagers in New Territories, gradually moved to the urban Hong Kong or emigrated for a better living.
In 2011, Ap Chau was included in the Hong Kong UNESCO Global Geopark: Northeast New Territories Sedimentary Rock Region, and subsequently set up the Ap Chau Story Room at the former Fishermen’s Children Primary School, telling fishermen stories of old times. By its side, the Church chapel is still under use, hosting regular worship sessions.
*In older maps, “Ap Chau” was labelled “Robinson Island” , named after the book “Robinson Crusoe”, indicating it was an uninhabited.