• News
  • Film and TV
  • Music
  • Tech
  • Features
  • Celebrity
  • Politics
  • Weird
  • Community
  • Advertise
  • Terms
  • Privacy & Cookies
  • LADbible Group
  • LADbible
  • SPORTbible
  • GAMINGbible
  • Tyla
  • UNILAD Tech
  • FOODbible
  • License Our Content
  • About Us & Contact
  • Jobs
  • Latest
  • Topics A-Z
  • Authors
Facebook
Instagram
X
Threads
TikTok
YouTube
Submit Your Content
Inside one of the most crowded islands on Earth where more than 500 people live in space smaller than soccer pitch

Home> News> Travel

Published 14:18 15 May 2024 GMT+1

Inside one of the most crowded islands on Earth where more than 500 people live in space smaller than soccer pitch

The tiny island sits on the the border between Uganda and Kenya

Niamh Shackleton

Niamh Shackleton

When you think of overcrowded places, the likes of Paris, Rome and New York might come to mind - but this tiny island definitely takes the cake.

Located on Africa's Lake Victoria is a place called Migingo Island and when we say tiny, we mean tiny.

The body of land is less than 0.5 acres big. To put that into perspective, that's around the size of half of your average soccer field.

Migingo Island is home to over 500 people. (CARL DE SOUZA/AFP via Getty Images)
Migingo Island is home to over 500 people. (CARL DE SOUZA/AFP via Getty Images)

Advert

Migingo Island awkwardly sits on the the border between Uganda and Kenya, meaning no one's quite sure who actually owns it.

With this in mind, it's said that a bilateral commission is going to examine the land to determine if it should be handed to Uganda or Kenya.

The move comes after both countries previously decided to create a joint commission to determine where the border is - but nothing came of it.

The island's been co-managed by Uganda and Kenya ever since.

The tiny island is less than 0.5 acres in size. (Recep Canik/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)
The tiny island is less than 0.5 acres in size. (Recep Canik/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

The ongoing dispute over ownership of Migingo has been hailed as Africa's 'smallest war'.

As you can imagine, because the island is so small, everything on it is very close together.

Residents on the island live side-by-side in metal shacks. As well as homes, there's reportedly has four bars, a makeshift hair salon and several brothels, according to the Mirror.

While there might be four bars, there's allegedly only one sanitation facility available.

A woman cleans her bar on Migingo Island. (YASUYOSHI CHIBA/AFP via Getty Images)
A woman cleans her bar on Migingo Island. (YASUYOSHI CHIBA/AFP via Getty Images)

The main type of work available on the island is fishing, with species such as Nile Perch being plentiful the deep waters surrounding Migingo.

And it's the fishing that draws some people to the minuscule island.

Speaking to The Guardian in 2018, Migingo resident Isaac Buhinza said that he went to the island because 'my friends who were here before used to come back home with lots of goodies' from their fishing trips.

Living on the island rather than travelling there from nearby countries saves fishermen fuel and gives them access to wholesalers.

Fishing opportunities draws people to the island. (YASUYOSHI CHIBA/AFP via Getty Images)
Fishing opportunities draws people to the island. (YASUYOSHI CHIBA/AFP via Getty Images)

It's thought that fisherman can make a decent living on catching Nile perch, with the price of the fish going up 50 percent in recent years (as of 2019).

According to Kenyan fisherman Kennedy Ochieng, large good quality fish could bring in excess of $300 per kg in international markets, Al Jazeera reported.

While Nile perch is still in abundance around the island, other fish stocks have sharply diminished.

Featured Image Credit: YASUYOSHI CHIBA/AFP via Getty Images

Topics: Africa, News, Travel

Niamh Shackleton
Niamh Shackleton

Niamh Shackleton is an experienced journalist for UNILAD, specialising in topics including mental health and showbiz, as well as anything Henry Cavill and cat related. She has previously worked for OK! Magazine, Caters and Kennedy.

X

@niamhshackleton

Advert

Advert

Advert

Choose your content:

6 hours ago
9 hours ago
11 hours ago
12 hours ago
  •  SAUL LOEB / AFP via Getty Images
    6 hours ago

    White House downplays Trump’s racist Obama post as president refuses to apologise

    The racist video which depicted the Obamas as primates was slammed by both sides of the political divide

    News
  • Kevin Mazur / Getty Images
    9 hours ago

    Lil Jon’s son Nathan Smith dead at 27 as family pay tribute to ‘kindest human’

    Smith, a.k.a. DJ Young Slade, was reported missing from his home earlier this week

    Celebrity
  • Getty Images/Emmanuele Ciancaglini
    11 hours ago

    2026 Olympic medals will be the most expensive in the Games' history

    Competitors at the 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Olympic Games will get the most valuable medals in history

    News
  • Getty Images/Fiordaliso
    12 hours ago

    Bizarre new showering trend explained as experts claim it could fix your sleep

    Taking a shower before bed could help you to relax, but one practice might just take that to the next level

    News
  • Inside ‘hell on Earth’ prison where Bryan Kohberger will serve life sentence after brutal murder of four Idaho students
  • Woman who sold everything to live on cruise ship explains why it ‘costs less money’ than living on land
  • Everything we know as student who went missing in Thailand is found and arrested more than 4,000 miles away
  • Man visits 'world's most densely populated island' with a width smaller than a soccer field and what he saw shocked him