Frequently asked questions
How often does the data update?
It depends on the department. Buildings Department order lists are published monthly, Food and Environmental Hygiene Department licence lists daily, Education Bureau school nets yearly. Every block of data on the site shows the department, the government’s update frequency and the date we retrieved our copy — the full table is on the data sources page.
Does a Buildings Department order mean the building has a problem right now?
No. The Buildings Department publishes orders issued and orders cleared as two separate lists and never publishes which are still outstanding. An order on the issued list may have been complied with years ago. Treat it as “has been under an order”, and confirm current status with the department — more on this in how to read this data.
My building has no order listed. Is it fine?
Not necessarily. The unauthorised building works dataset only starts on 1 May 2023, so an older order will not appear. An order may also simply not have been issued yet. No order on record is not a clean bill of health.
Why does my building have no 3D model?
The Lands Department 3D model covers roughly three quarters of Hong Kong buildings. Where a model is missing we leave it out rather than substitute the nearest one — matching a building to the wrong model gets it wrong about one time in five, and a wrong model is worse than none.
Which buildings have a page on this site?
Buildings that appear on a Buildings Department list of statutory orders or notices — 5,109 of them across 18 districts. Every one of the 342,249 building footprints in Hong Kong is on the map itself, with its own detail card.
Is KongInsight free?
Yes. The whole map, every layer, the 3D models, sun and shadow, and unlimited detail cards are free with no account and no usage limit while we launch. If paid plans are introduced later, the pricing page will say so first.
Do I need an account?
No. There is no sign-up, no login and no usage limit. Any view of the map can be shared as a link and the person you send it to does not need an account either.
Where does the data come from, and can I check it myself?
Everything is Hong Kong government open data from data.gov.hk and the CSDI portal. Every dataset is listed on the data sources page with the issuing department, its official name and a link to the original, so any figure on the site can be traced back to its source record.
Do you keep old versions of the government data?
Yes. Since 2026-08-31 we archive 9 datasets every day, because the government overwrites these files and keeps no history. Comparing two days is the only way to see when a record entered a list or left it.
Do you show property prices or school rankings?
No. We show Rating and Valuation Department district averages as general reference, never a figure for a specific flat, and we show which schools are in a school net without ranking them. We also do not publish haunted-flat (凶宅) records.
A page is wrong about my building. What now?
Email us and we will fix it — the address is on the contact page. Include the page address and what the government record actually says. If the government record itself is wrong, we will note the dispute on the page rather than quietly delete it.
Can I use KongInsight data in my own work?
The underlying government datasets are published under the DATA.GOV.HK and CSDI terms, which permit commercial reuse with attribution. KongInsight’s own derived layers — measured building heights, facade orientation, sun and shadow — are not government data and are not covered by those terms. See licence and reuse.