The people of Lin Ma Hang descend from four main clans: the Yip (葉), Lau (劉), Sin (冼), and Koon (官). They are part of the Four Yeuk — a traditional alliance of four villages including Loi Tung, Lung Yeuk Tau, Lin Ma Hang, and Tan Chuk Hang — whose ceremonial centre is the Hung Shing Temple at Hung Leng. In 1911, the census recorded 516 residents, 199 of them male — numbers that reflect a community large enough to maintain multiple ancestral halls, a village office with a "Gold List" recording every graduate, and a temple to Kwan Tai. Today the Yip Ancestral Hall is the most visited, its interior preserving a carved sedan chair once used for village weddings — an object so specific in its associations that it anchors the whole hall in human time rather than institutional history. The Residence of Ip Ting-sz holds declared monument status. Several other structures carry Grade II or Grade III historic building designations. A MacIntosh Fort on the ridge above the village, overlooking Shenzhen, reminds visitors that the hills here were once a military observation post as much as a farming landscape.

Lead ore was discovered at Lin Ma Hang in 1915, and a mine went into operation that year to extract lead-zinc ore from the hillside. It ran intermittently for over four decades — not continuously, but returning whenever conditions and prices warranted — before the government rescinded the mining lease in 1962 and the workings were permanently abandoned. Over that period, the mine produced 16,000 tonnes of lead metal and 360,000 ounces of silver. The tunnels are now flooded, their pillars intact underground in the dark. Bats have colonized the deeper reaches. The Lin Ma Hang Stream that drains the valley below was designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest in 2008, partly in recognition of what the mine's closure allowed to recover: the stream now supports 17 species of primary freshwater fish, representing 50 percent of all such species native to Hong Kong. Industrial extraction and ecological recovery share the same hillside, separated by sixty years.

Just outside the gate leading from the village to Lin Ma Hang Road, a small bridge crosses into mainland China. It is called the international bridge — 國際橋 — and for decades it served a very specific purpose: allowing farmers on both sides of the border to reach their agricultural lots on the opposite bank. Users needed a special Cross Border Farming Permit, a document that acknowledged the practical reality that families whose land straddled a political boundary did not stop needing to work it simply because that boundary existed. The mainland border post is visible from the village gate. As of 2025, the bridge is abandoned; the farming arrangements that sustained it have apparently lapsed. What remains is the bridge itself, a small concrete span across a river that once marked the edge of two empires and now divides two systems, standing as a record of the ordinary human accommodations that borders require.

Until January 4, 2016, Lin Ma Hang was entirely within the Frontier Closed Area, inaccessible to anyone without a government permit. The 2016 reclassification removed the village itself from the closed zone, but a section of Lin Ma Hang Road — the access route between Wang Lek and the village — remained inside the restricted boundary, meaning road access still required a permit. A parallel footpath, rough in places and with short steep sections, was built outside the closed area to allow permit-free access on foot. Green Minibus 59K from Sheung Shui Station connects the village to urban Hong Kong, and since early 2025 passengers on that service no longer need a permit to enter or leave. The village is also reachable by hiking down from Robin's Nest hill — an approach that rewards visitors with the Hanging Bell Flowers (吊鐘花) that blanket the basin in season, a detail locals have remembered long enough to give it a name.