The other night I caught this documentary on Youtube about the Kowloon the Walled City. While it was torn down over 20 years ago, while it lasted it was a largely ungoverned city of over 50,000 residents all crammedd into an area only about the size of a couple city blocks.
What began as a Chinese military fort became an enclave after new territories were leased to Britian by China in 1898. The population quickly increased dramatically following the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong during World War 2. By 1990 the walled city contained over 50,000 residents.
The city existed in kind of a wierd diplomatic limbo for years before finally comming to a settlement agreement and rehousing the people and being knocked down sometime around 2003 or 2004.
While it seems kind of wild that people lived in there, it was in many ways a city no different from any other place with people living their lives and going about their daily business.
A Canadian Photographer Greg Girard spend years there doing a photo series on daily life in the walled city. I'll include a few photos below and would encourage you to check out some of his other work.
