Simon Wong, an unemployed 61-year-old, pays £184 a month to live in a four-foot by eight-foot box

Hong Kong prices are so high that for some, cramped wire cages and 'coffin apartments' are the only option

In Seoul, South Korea, 73-year-old divorcee Kong Kyung-soon lives in an apartment measuring six square feet


The world isn't getting any bigger, but its population certainly is.

And for many of its most condensed cities, it's the poorest who must bear the brunt of a worsening battle for space.

In Hong Kong, where the cost of property has more than doubled since 2012, some are forced to live in spaces ominously referred to as 'cage homes' or 'coffin apartments' - tiny, cramped and for what they are, ludicrously expensive.

One woman pictured here lives with her young son in a 60-sq-ft room for a staggering £400 per month. Not far away, a man lives alone in an even smaller coffin apartment, measuring just 20-sq-ft. There's not even enough space to stand up and yet he pays £182 per month.

In South Korea, 73-year-old divorcee Kong Kyung-soon makes do with little more than six square feet in Seocho-gu, adjacent to the wealthy Gangnam suburb in Seoul.

Other living situations documented here include the family-of-three who lost their home during the 2009 financial crisis and had to move into a Los Angeles garage; and the 300-sq-ft micro-apartments in New York City, which cost a whopping $2,700 (£2,218) per month.

Home prices have increased nearly 50 per cent since 2012 in Kong Kong, making the property here among the most unaffordable in the world - and forcing some to live in these stackable 'cage homes'

Some of these inhabitants have lived in caged homes for decades, paying around the equivalent of £185 per month in rent

The alternative in Hong Kong is one of these 60-sq-ft 'coffin' apartments. This woman lives in one with her young son for around £400 per month

In 2011, Tracy Burger, his wife Elizabeth and their son, pictured, were forced to move into the cramped one-room garage attached to the house of Elizabeth's mother after losing their jobs during the 2009 financial crisis

Kong Kyung-soon, 73, lives alone in a space measuring little more than six square feet in Seocho-gu, adjacent to the wealthy Gangnam suburb in Seoul, South Korea

She boils water in a rice cooker to save money and pays around £280 per month to live here, having divorced more than 30 years ago after her husband was caught having a string of affairs and then a love-child

Simon Wong, a 61-year-old unemployed man, pays £183 per month to live in this box, which measures just four by six feet

There is no room to stand up and only enough space to hang a few items of clothing on pegs next to where he sleeps

Lee Oi Lin, a 56-year-old woman, pays around £157 per month for her 45-square-foot subdivided flat inside an industrial building in Hong Kong

A woman perching on the bed in her minute cubicle home, one of the 19 24-sq-ft units inside a 600-sq-ft residential apartment complex in Hong Kong

The coffin home pictured here fits a single bed and residents share a common space with a toilet and sink and pay around £120 per month

Elsewhere in Hong Kong, Li Rong, 37, uses the bottom bunk in her nine-foot-square apartment as a bed and the top bunk as space to store the rest of her belongings

In the Chinese city of Hefei, a patient who can't afford a bed at the local hospital camps out in the tiny room of a nearby apartment complex instead

The Indian slum of Dharav in Mumbai is home to more than a million people who live hand-to-mouth in tiny shacks like these

This apartment block, located in New York's Kips Bay neighbourhood, is the city's first micro-unit development, with studios in the region of $2,700 (£2,218) per month, measuring around 300-sq-ft, and equipped with space-saving pull-out tables

In Poland, this one-person house measures just 36 inches across at its narrowest point, and is wedged into the gap between two buildings in Warsaw

Definitely not designed with family life in mind, Keret House is barely big enough for one person to inch their way from the single bed, through the minuscule kitchen and into the tiny toilet

In Portland, Oregon, Yves Manika (centre), his wife Mamie (left) and sons Aristote and James (right) lived in this small room at the Chestnut Street shelter in 2013 while they found work and an apartment of their own

For Colorado couple Merete Mueller, left, and Christopher Smith, right, living small is a choice. They've built a tiny home on land near Hartsel, measuring 19 by seven feet