In 1987 Kowloon Walled City packed 33,000 people into six and a half acres

According to Boing Boing, by nineteen eighty-seven, Hong Kong's Kowloon Walled City had become one of the most densely populated places on Earth. Thirty-three thousand residents squeezed into just two point six hectares—roughly six and a half acres. The density was staggering: one point two million people per square kilometer, or about three million per square mile. This extreme situation arose from a colonial quirk. An eighteen ninety-eight convention leased the New Territories to Britain but excluded an old Chinese fort. The result was a stateless enclave claimed by two governments but governed by neither.

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