Government leaflets serve as a communication channel between the government and the general public. Therefore, the communicative purpose of the leaflets is the main decisive factor for text production and for decision making in the translation process. However, up to now, not many researches have been done on the translation of government leaflets. This study attempts to investigate the translations of government leaflets from a functionalist perspective, drawing on Reiss's text typology, Nord's text analysis and Newmark's dichotomy of semantic and communicative translation as the theoretical basis. The data collected for analysis are leaflets issued by the Hong Kong Government. Text types and functions of the leaflets, translation strategies and methods adopted are analyzed, and the possible reasons for the translator's decision making are discussed. It is found that government leaflets are usually multifunctional. However, identification of the dominant text type is useful for the determination of an appropriate translation strategy. In addition, semantic transition is mainly employed for informative texts while communicative translation used for operative texts. Keywords: Government leaflets, text types, text functions, translation strategies, semantic translation, communicative translation