Lamma Island, also known as Y Island, Pok Liu Chau or simply Pok Liu, is the third largest island in Hong Kong. Administratively, it is part of the Islands District. Lamma Island is a rural area. The island was named Lamma because of a chart reading error by Alexander Dalrymple in the 1760s. He acquired a Portuguese chart of the entrance to the Pearl …Lamma Island, also known as Y Island, Pok Liu Chau or simply Pok Liu, is the third largest island in Hong Kong. Administratively, it is part of the Islands District. Lamma Island is a rural area. The island was named Lamma because of a chart reading error by Alexander Dalrymple in the 1760s. He acquired a Portuguese chart of the entrance to the Pearl River. Close to the west of the island, the Portuguese owner had written "Lama". Dalrymple misinterpreted that as the name of the island. However, it was a Portuguese note describing the consistency of the seabed for the sake of anchoring there. The Portuguese word "lama" refers to mud. In early charts the name was spelled with only one "m". The island acquired a British name by error. The name was acculturated phonetically in characters, "Lam a" can mean "south fork" in Cantonese, with the original muddle being all but forgotten. At some point, things became further obscured by the addition of the second "m" in the English spelling.
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