The Most Crowded Island on Earth Isn't Manhattan
Credit: Copyright Aventure Colombiahttp://aventurecolombia.com
A population density of over 250,000 per square mile.
The Archipelago of San Bernardo is a scatter of tiny islands in Colombia's Gulf of Morrosquillo. Just a two-hour journey southwest of Cartagena through crystalline Caribbean waters lies the smallest isle in the archipelago, Santa Cruz del Islote. Though it's only 2.4 acres in size, Santa Cruz is home to over 1,200 people. That's four times as dense as Manhattan -- and with no high-rises at all, just tiny one-story houses linked by a maze of alleyways.
Come for the sweet dreams!
Locals like to say that Santa Cruz was discovered about 150 years ago by some wandering fisherman from Barú, on the Colombia coast. They noticed that the island had no mosquitoes -- a rarity in the Caribbean -- and set up camp. That night, as the legend goes, the men slept so peacefully that they decided to stay.
Every inch of Santa Cruz is filled.
Today, their descendants have crammed 90 houses, two shops, one restaurant, one all-ages discoteca, and a school onto just .004 square miles of (partly artificial) land. The only unoccupied space is a courtyard about half the size of a tennis court, and buildings stretch right to the water on all sides. Most residents work elsewhere, either fishing or staffing resorts on nearby islands.
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