Fantastic Island

Behold Hashima Island off the west coast of Japan near Nagasaki. For reasons obvious in this photo the island is also knows as Gunkanjima ("Battleship Island"). Early in the 20th century the island began to be used as the entry-point for coal mines that stretched out from the island under the sea. For a time it became the most densely populated bit of land on the planet, peaking at 5,259 people on the 6.3 hectare island in 1959. 40% of the island was devoted to the industrial workings of the mines with the people living on the other 60%. The population density at its peak in the residential district was 1,391 people per hectare. Compare that to Vancouver's West End which is currently at about 250 people per hectare.

With the mines exhausted the island has been utterly abandoned since 1974. http://www.gunkanjima-odyssey.com is where these spectacular images come from, and there are many more. The text is in Japanese. This article on another site (Cabinet Magazine) gives a brief history of the island in English.