Living on the World’s Most Crowded Island – The New York Times

Off Colombia’s Caribbean coast, two hours from Cartagena, sits a dot of an island, just over two acres big and barely noted on maps. Until a few generations ago, it was uninhabited, a rest stop for fishermen lured to its shores by the simple promise of solid ground.

Then some decided to stay. A few more joined them. And so on until Santa Cruz del Islote became what it is today: the most densely-populated island on earth. That’s what attracted Charlie Cordero, a documentary photographer from Barranquilla, just as it draws tourists from all over the world. Everyone wants to see what it’s like for 1,200 people to live on a patch of land four times as dense as Manhattan, with no services – no running water, sewer system, police, hospital, trash pickup.