九龍寨城
kowloon walled city
The Kowloon Walled City was a densely populated enclave in British Hong Kong. As the population of the enclave grew during the Opium Wars, new buildings and passageways appeared. Soon, the structure that began as a Chinese military fort became something of a living organism -- growing and evolving as residents and business owners added to the structure to suit their needs.
At its peak, the population density of the Walled City was 3.25 million people per square mile. For comparison, Manhattan--the most densely populated county in the United States--has a population density of ~74,000 people per square mile as of this writing. As sanitary consitions grew increasingly untenable, the British and Chinese governments jointly decided that Kowloon Walled City should be torn down.
pictures
articles
- City of Darkness - an exhaustive resource compiled by a couple who spent years photographing the city, this site features extensive articles, photographs, and interviews with residents of Kowloon Walled City.
- Atlas Obscura article - details the scope of the walled city and the saga of its destruction.
- Illustrated Cross-Section of Kowloon Walled City - this panoramic illustration was created by Hitomi Terasawa for a now out-of-print book called "Kowloon City: An Illustrated Guide". The cross-section is astonishingly detailed, even featuring depictions of the residents themselves living and working in the chaos of the city.
- "Kowloon Walled City" Wikipedia page - an overview of the city's history.
- Rare Historical Photos - an extensive collection of photos of Kowloon, plus some history.