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Comment by ddeck | Hacker News Reader

Surprisingly only 24% of Hong Kong is developed "built-up" area. The rest is mostly forested. This also means that despite the density being broadly equivalent to Singapore on that list, it is actually much more densely populated in the areas where people live and work.

Hong Kong has a mountainous topography. Of the total land area of 1,111 km 2, 24.3% (270 km2) is built-up area, with the remaining 75 .7% (841 km 2) being not-for-development or non-built-up area consisting mainly of country parks, wetland, reservoirs, fish ponds, etc

https://www.legco.gov.hk/yr17-18/english/panels/dev/papers/d...

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Government policy and moneyed interests have been aligned since the british to restrict land use to keep property prices high and buy political support of ancestors of indigenous residents through free handout of tiny plots of land for low density housing to the male descendants. All of the people that bought into the overpriced housing market also want prices to stay high.

Hong Kong land use is fascinating and the government's Planning Department provides a great tool to explore how land is used and for what purpose: https://www.pland.gov.hk/pland_en/info_serv/open_data/landu/

The total area used by transport (71 sq km) is very close to the total area used for all types of residential (80 sq km). Hong Kong has 733 sq km of woodland and forest.

I wonder if HK could otherwise go Chongqing with their mountains, building the city up on them, or maybe blowing them up like they did in Lanzhou? It’s nice that they don’t, though.

In parts they do: the Hong Kong Island side has housing all the way to Victoria Peak and public escalators etc to serve it. The scenery isn't quite as dramatic as Chongqing though, and it's much less dense (particularly the upper levels are luxury/heritage houses, not apartments), so no monorails zipping through buildings etc.

I’ve been up the escalators before, it doesn’t feel anything like CQ though. A lot of the mountains just don’t seem big enough or at a grade that would allow for housing all the way up (like Victoria peek or west Vancouver). They might be able to blow them up or terrace them.

Most Hong Kongers agree it’s nice that they don’t. The nature parks are treasured. It’s also a false dichotomy because it’s not about “housing or nature”. There is plenty of brownfield land but in the New Territories it would be politically challenging to develop on it because it would mean buying or forcing out the owners who have rights to the land because of the legacy system of male heirs.

They already blow up small part of mountains or filled up marsh. Typically Yuen Long area.

Yes. That means if we accounted for that. Compare to Number 1 on the list where Macau has no such issue. Hong Kong would take the Top Spot as the most populated place on the planet.

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