The original bay is gone. In the 1950s, the remains of the bay were reclaimed to build Victoria Park — and when the fill went in, workers also brought back a statue of Queen Victoria that had been taken to Japan during the Second World War from Statue Square in Central. The causeway itself, a road built in the early days of development, became Causeway Road. Kellett Island, once offshore, was connected to Hong Kong Island by a breakwater during that same reclamation. What had been a distinct body of water is now a major urban park, a typhoon shelter to the northeast, and several lanes of traffic. The original Causeway Bay — the actual bay — is today known as the Tin Hau area, near the Tin Hau MTR station and the Causeway Bay Tin Hau Temple. What most people call Causeway Bay, centred on the MTR station of that name, was historically East Point.

The neighbourhood's identity as a retail destination began in 1960 when Daimaru, a Japanese-style department store, opened on Great George Street. It was the first of several. By the 1970s Causeway Bay had developed into Hong Kong's main shopping district, and the arrival of Matsuzakaya, Mitsukoshi, and Sogo gave it a nickname: 'little Ginza.' The comparison was apt — the concentration of Japanese retail culture in a small urban grid felt like a fragment of Tokyo transplanted to Hong Kong Island's north shore. In the 1990s, larger purpose-built shopping centres followed: Times Square, Hysan Place, Windsor House, Lee Gardens. By 2012, retail rents in the area had overtaken Fifth Avenue, a ranking Causeway Bay held for roughly a decade. The streets stay busy until after midnight; the density of options, from international brands to small local specialists, is relentless.

The area holds more than its commercial reputation suggests. Victoria Park — the reclaimed bay — is the largest public park on Hong Kong Island's north shore, home to open spaces, tennis courts, and the annual Mid-Autumn Festival lantern fair. The Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club occupies the harbour edge near Kellett Island. The Hong Kong Central Library, the city's main public library, stands at the eastern end of the park. The Hong Kong Stadium and Happy Valley Racecourse are within the broader district, and the South China Athletic Association clubhouse has been a fixture for decades. Near the Canal Road Flyover, an area known in Cantonese as Ngo Keng — 'goose's neck' — is famous for villain hitting, a folk ritual in which practitioners beat paper effigies of enemies with sandals. It's the kind of thing that makes the 'little Ginza' comparison feel incomplete.

Causeway Bay's geography has always been slightly slippery. The area straddles the boundary between two administrative districts — Eastern and Wan Chai — and the exact line has shifted several times, most recently in 2016 when Victoria Park and Tin Hau constituencies moved into Wan Chai District. The Wan Chai Fire Station appears in addresses with 'Wan Chai' in the name despite sitting on the Causeway Bay side of Canal Road. Streets named Jardine's Bazaar and Jardine's Crescent trace the sale of this land to Jardine Matheson by the colonial government in the early nineteenth century. The Cross-Harbour Tunnel enters from the north, the Aberdeen Tunnel exits to the south, and the tram line that has run along Hong Kong Island since 1904 still makes its steady way through streets that pack more activity per square metre than almost anywhere in the world.