Baishizhou (Chinese: 白石洲; pinyin: Báishízhōu; Jyutping: baak6 sek6 zau1) is an area of Nanshan District, Shenzhen, Guangdong, China. As of 2016[update] about 150,000 people live in Baishizhou.[1] With an area of 0.23 square miles (0.60 km2), it has the most inhabitants, as well as the highest building and population density, of any urban village within Shenzhen. Accounting for unregistered and undocumented residents, some estimates of Baishizhou's rental population are well above two hundred thousand. [2]
In 2014 Charlie Lanyon of The South China Morning Post described it as "one of the last vestiges of old Shenzhen".[3]
Before the mass-migration to the Shenzhen SEZ, Baishizhou had been a destination of immigrants and refugees for centuries. Modern narratives of the village's origins often date the earliest settlement at Baishizhou to a Qing Dynasty habitat named Village of the Ten Thousand Families. [2] It is an amalgamation of five existing villages that became one circa 1958 after a collective farm opened.[4] The Shenzhen government bought land around, but not within, the villages and redeveloped it.[1]
In 2014, the Shenzhen government announced that it was going to demolish existing developments and redevelop Baishizhou,[1] with another in 2019.[5]
Lanyon noted the abundance of street food and stated that the cuisine was inexpensive and also "excellent".[3]
Shenzhen Saturday School (深圳補習授業校 Shinsen Hoshū Jugyō Kō), a Japanese weekend school, has its office on the 8th floor of the Jinsanjiao Building (金三角大厦/金三角大廈) in Baishizhou.[6]
