Marker helped define the limits of Victoria in 1903
The government is hunting for a missing boundary stone, one of at least seven marking the limits of the city of Victoria, the first urban settlement in Hong Kong after it became a British colony.
The stone disappeared in June during slope renovation work on Magazine Gap Road.
'The Antiquities and Monuments Office has been attempting to approach the owners of the private lot for the whereabouts of the stone, but has yet to get a reply,' a spokesman for the Development Bureau said.
Winfoong International Limited, the owner of the private lot on which the stone had stood, claims to know little about the missing marker.
'We are not aware of this stone and we have no further information to provide,' company secretary Julia Cheng Kin-nam said.
When Hong Kong Island was occupied by Britain in January 1841, there were 16 villages. In 1843, Britain created the city of Victoria covering Sheung Wan, Central and Wan Chai. The government later erected boundary stones on Hong Kong Island marking the city limits. Each stone bears the inscription 'City Boundary 1903'.