Kowloon Walled City, which was situated just outside Hong Kong, was one of the world’s most fantastical abandoned cities. If you’re a sci-fi fan, your antennas will reel and your imagination run wild at these pics and the story of how the city, which started out as a British/Japanese base for watching pirate activity soon became a lawless post-apocalyptic gotham city of sorts, creating a world within it’s densely packed, stacked columns of living quarters and businesses. It’s the stuff movies and books are made of.
Photos show inside views of Kowloon Walled City before it was eventually demolished in 1993 for health and safety violations (they say a number of floors from the ground floor up had actually become inhospitable for years because of the rubbish that collected there). The city’s inhabitants were a culture and society unto themselves, building additions onto the city, drilling wells and tapping into nearby city’s water sources. The building went up so high that sunlight no longer passed down to the floor, creating a dense, dark and damp breeding ground not just for health hazards but a thriving underworld for druglords, prostitutions, assasins and various low-life, illuminated by fluroscent lights and lamps.
a rare beam of sunlight passes through the stacks
After the city was demolished, a historical park was built on site, where you can go see some remnants of the city that still exist. (website)
This guy’s dad lived in Kowloon Walled City for 14 years, and you can read about it here.
Here’s a great article with lots of info, pics and a 9 minute video that claims to give you a rare look inside the city before it was knocked down (I didn’t watch the whole thing), it’s an old recording and may hurt your eyes due to blurriness and jogging motion.
For more amazing, creepy, fascinating and mysterious abandoned cities around the world, go here.
wow…that’s fascinating XD
whoa. mind blown.
wooow o.o i never imagined such a place existed
I grew up in HK and regret a lot now that I didn’t enter it. My mom went inside it frequently when she was a kid. btw, it was not just “outside” Hong Kong. It WAS actually inside Hong Kong. For some weird historical reason, it was not governed by the British though.
Wow, yeah, it would have been an amazing story if you had!