Temporal variations in aerosol optical properties were investigated at a coastal station in Hong Kong based on the field observation from February 2012 to February 2015. At 550 nm, the average light-scattering (151 ± 100 Mm−1) and absorption coefficients (8.3 ± 6.1 Mm−1) were lower than most of other rural sites in eastern China, while the single-scattering albedo (SSA  =  0.93 ± 0.05) was relatively higher compared with other rural sites in the Pearl River Delta (PRD) region.