Kowloon Peninsula, China
Coordinates: 22 19 N 114 11 E
Area: 3.5 square miles (9 sq. km)
Before maps became a source of fascination for me, there was LEGO. Something about these multicolored, interlocking plastic building blocks sparked my imagination in way that other toys simply couldn’t. Ever since my enthusiasm for travel has overtaken my desire to construct miniature castles and Cubist dinosaurs, I tend to find cartograms and satellite imagery a bit more engrossing. Which doesn’t mean I wasn’t excited to discover Sport City, the latest creation of the Hong Kong LEGO Users Group (HKLUG). Using roughly 300,000 bricks and some 4,500 mini-figures, they have painstakingly replicated Beijing’s Olympic Village. Personally, I think their impressive achievement should be toured like the Olympic torch, but for now, it can only be seen by visiting Kowloon Peninsula, the densely populated spit of land across Victoria Harbor from Hong Kong Island.
Ben Keene is the editor of Oxford Atlas of the World. Check out some of his previous places of the week.
Ever since my enthusiasm for travel has overtaken my desire to construct miniature castles and Cubist dinosaurs, I tend to find cartograms and satellite imagery a bit more engrossing. Which doesn’t mean I wasn’t excited to discover Sport City.