Kurzzeichen
According to the Basic Law of Hong Kong and the Official Languages Ordinance, both Chinese and English are the official languages of Hong Kong with equal status. The variety of Chinese is not stipulated; however, Cantonese, being the language most commonly used by the majority of Hongkongers, forms the "de facto" standard. Similarly, Traditional Chinese characters are most commonly used in Hong Kong and form the "de facto" standard for written Chinese, however there is an increasing presence of Simplified Chinese characters particularly in areas related to tourism. In government use, documents written using Traditional Chinese characters are authoritative over ones written with Simplified Chinese characters.