Kowloon Walled City

Hong Kong Island was obtained by the British in 1842 as part of the Treaty of Nanjing that ended the first Opium War. Though opium was illegal in Britain, the British fought this war with China to ensure that they would have a commodity that there was demand for in China in order to correct the huge trade imbalance created by British demand for tea, spices, porcelain, silk, art, and other Chinese goods. Opium was one of the first truly global commodities, with a production chain wrapping the world. Grown in India, processed in Afghanistan, shipped by Americans, and sold by Brits in East Asia, opium was one of the first 'vertically integrated' global products, with all aspects of production from farm to front controlled by the British Empire.

The British obtained Hong Kong from the Qing emperor to use as a port in this trade. After the second opium war, the mainland side of the harbor, Kowloon, was added to the British possession. In 1898, the British leased the New Territories and Lantau Island for 99 years from the Qing, to ensure adequate food and water supply. It was the expiration of this lease that led to the return of the entire possession in 1997, since to separate the New Territories from Kowloon and HK Island by then would have been like returning a body but trying to keep a head alive.

The Qing court retained one 0.026 sq. km. parcel of land in Kowloon, a toehold that was kept as a garrison to keep an eye on the British. Known as the Kowloon Walled City, this fortified settlement was abandoned after the Qing dynasty fell in 1911, but remained Chinese territory. At that time, the population of the walled city was approximately 700. In the ensuing decades, the city became a lawless place, full of Triad mobsters and a lively informal economy composed of unlicensed and illegal businesses, secret factories, labyrinthine corridors where no sunlight ever shone. Lacking any planning regulation, buildings and utility service were modified at will. Eventually, the Kowloon Walled City reached the highest recorded residential densities in human history, with an estimated population of 50,000 inhabitants in the 1980's.

The Chinese and the British agreed to demolish the city in 1987, and today the site is the Kowloon Walled City Park.