Member-only story
History
The Most Densely Populated Area to Have Ever Existed on Earth
350 buildings, 33,000 residents, and one postman
Kowloon Walled City was a former Chinese fort at the tip of the Kowloon Peninsula. It was built in 1843 and contained barracks to house 150 soldiers and an office for the Mandarin, a Chinese imperial bureaucrat. The fort was surrounded by a wall 700 feet long and 400 feet wide and was intended as a visible Chinese military presence near the new British Colony. A portion of the territory had been signed over to Great Britain during the First Opium War of 1839.
In 1860, a new treaty was signed that granted the entire Kowloon Peninsula to Britain, with the exception of the Walled City. Britain finally gained control of the city in 1899 and began moving in, even though China never renounced its claim on the area. Missionaries and farmers swarmed to the city, building schools, churches, and farming on the land within. Since no one technically governed the city, it quickly deteriorated into a city of boorish morals and behaviors.
The city of Hong Kong wanted to clear the city and turn it into a park, however, the Chinese government always stepped in and prevented them from following through. When World War II began, Japanese forces that occupied the Kowloon Peninsula tore down…
