In Hong Kong, space has always been at a premium. The small autonomous territory, part of the People's Republic of China, houses more than 7.3 million residents within just 426 square miles (1,104 sq kilometers)—resulting in one of the highest population densities in the world: 17,150 people per square mile (6,650 people per sq kilometers). In such a limited and popular environment, developers tend to build as tall as possible, leading to a bristling cityscape that has led some to call Hong Kong a concrete forest. Reuters reports that home prices in Hong Kong have risen by 120 percent since 2008, with prices in the luxury market being pushed up by wealthy buyers from mainland China. The market has cooled in recent months as investors wait to see which direction China's slowing economy will trend.
The Dizzying Cityscape of Hong Kong
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A 76-meter-high (249-foot) bronze-forged white Buddhist Avalokitesvara or Guan Yin statue, part of the Tsz Shan Monastery, stands behind luxurious houses at Tai Po District in Hong Kong on April 16, 2015. #
Bobby Yip / Reuters -
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A woman sits inside her “cubicle” home, one of the nineteen 24-square feet units inside a 600-square-foot residential apartment complex in Hong Kong September 16, 2009. At the time, the Hong Kong government estimated that about 100,000 people lived in similar “cubicle” units, which cost an average monthly rental rate of $150, according to the Society for Community Organization, an NGO which helps those in need. #
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Graves cover a hillside next to apartment buildings at a cemetery in the Kowloon City district of Hong Kong, where both the living and dead are facing a shortage of space, on November 19, 2015. #
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Akee, 34, who works as a waiter, rests in a wooden box where he lives in Hong Kong on October 9, 2012. In Hong Kong's middle-class residential area, short distance from its shopping and financial districts, 24 people live in these wooden boxes, or “coffin homes,” packed in a single apartment of little over 50 square meters. In 2012, residents paid 1450 Hong Kong dollars ($180) for their living space built of wooden panels of 2 meters by 70 centimeters. To maximize income from the rent in central Hong Kong, landlords build these, nicknamed for to their resemblance to real coffins. #
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A window view overlooks the Victoria Harbour from a junior suite located on the 111th floor of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in the International Commerce Center (ICC), the world's fourth tallest building, in Hong Kong, on May 11, 2011. #
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