On 14 January 1987, the Hong Kong government announced that it would demolish the 140-year-old Kowloon Walled City. A memorial theme park would be built on the land – the Kowloon Walled City Park.

After the Opium War, Hong Kong Island was ceded to the British under the Treaty of Nanking in 1842. Kowloon Walled City was built in 1846 as a garrison by the Qing government. It was a military outpost for coastal defence.

People were welcome to live there.

The Qing Government thought that the Kowloon Walled City was a good location to overlook the colonial British. Therefore the Qing government insisted on sovereignty of the Walled City even though it agreed to lease the New Territories — that is, all the Kowloon Peninsula south of the Shenzhen River — to Britain in 1896.

After signing the lease, Hong Kong and Kowloon were totally controlled by British, except for the Kowloon Walled City. The British government still wanted to claim it, however.

The two parties eventually came into conflict about the sovereignty of the Walled City. Britian was forced to give up because it had to follow the terms of the lease. China remained the ruling power. Nevertheless, the Chinese government could not really rule the place because all the area around the city was controlled by the British. With this historical background, the Kowloon Walled City became a place free of any rule of law.

This place, whose historical significance in Hong Kong grew in importance, was considered as a “dark” place.

Starting with the influx of refugees in the ’50s, the population of the Kowloon Walled City increased a lot. There was a lot of prostitution, gambling and drug dealing, resulting from the lack of rule.

On the other hand, innocent residents ran factories there, but they were also outside the control of the law.

In this non-government area, the living environment was bad, the hygiene conditions were poor, the population density was very high and it was dangerous. This led to the decline of the place, which the Hong Kong Government decided to pull down.

Now people can only see some relics in the park.