Who is Kowloon Walled City?
Kowloon Walled City was an extremely densely populated and largely ungoverned enclave of China within the boundaries of Kowloon City, British Hong Kong. Built as an Imperial Chinese military fort, the walled city became a de jure enclave after the New Territories were leased to the United Kingdom in 1898. Its population increased dramatically after the end of the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong during World War II, attracting mostly refugees fleeing the renewed Chinese Civil War. By the late 1980s, the walled city contained roughly 35,000 residents within its territory of 2.6 hectares (6.4 acres; 26,000 m2). There was largely no governing of the city, therefore the city's citizens and businesses had no building codes to adhere to. Businesses that dealt in otherwise banned products, like dog meat, thrived. From the 1950s to the 1970s, it was controlled by local triads and had high rates of prostitution, gambling, and drug abuse. In January 1987, the British colonial government announ...
