Coffin burial spaces are available in the following public cemeteries managed by the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department:
- Wo Hop Shek Cemetery (Tel : 2675 5296);
- Cheung Chau Cemetery (Tel : 2981 5442);
- Tai O Cemetery (Tel : 2852 3606); and
- Lai Chi Yuen Cemetery (Tel : 2852 3606).
A grave space can be obtained on application (Application Form) and payment of the prescribed fee through a licensed undertaker at the respective Cemetery Office. A Certificate of Registration of Death or Burial Order must be produced for inspection. In addition, the applicant is also required to produce the original and a copy of letter from the relevant islands rural committee and a statutory declaration made by the legal representative or next of kin of the deceased person to certify and declare the deceased was an indigenous villager of the Islands District, or a bona fide resident of Islands District for a "continuous residing period" of not less than 7 years ( 10 years for Cheung Chau) or their minor children in the application for coffin burial in Cheung Chau Cemetery, Tai O Cemetery or Lai Chi Yuen Cemetery.
* "Continuous residing period" means the period that the deceased continuously resided on the island concerned right before his/her death
After the burial of coffin, one can make private arrangements with a mason for erection of a tombstone on the grave.
Burials in aforesaid public cemeteries are not permanent, but exhumable. Every year, the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department will issue an exhumation order in the Government Gazette, requiring the removal from graves of all human remains which have been interred in the aforesaid public cemeteries for more than six years. If the remains are not exhumed after expiry of the exhumation order, the Government will disinter the remains, cremate them, and re-inter the ashes in the Communal Grave at Sandy Ridge Cemetery. However, one can arrange, through an undertaker, to have the remains exhumed, and either cremated, or reburied in an urn grave in the Wo Hop Shek Cemetery. An Exhumation Permit may be obtained from the Kowloon Cemeteries and Crematoria Office (Tel : 2365 5321) at Upper Ground Floor, 6 Cheong Hang Road, Hung Hom and the Hong Kong Cemeteries and Crematoria Office (Tel : 2570 4318) at 1J Wong Nai Chung Road, Happy Valley, Hong Kong.