Slum facts for kids

Slum in Delhi, India

A slum is a part of a city or a town where many poor people live. It is a place where people may not have basic needs. Some of these people may also have social disadvantages. There are slums in most of the big cities of the world. They may not be called slum, however; see shanty town.

Victorian London

Charles Dickens was a great author of Victorian London. His account of the St Giles rookery was:

"Wretched houses with broken windows patched with rags and paper; every room let out to a different family, and in many instances to two or even three – fruit and ‘sweetstuff’ manufacturers in the cellars, barbers and red-herring vendors in the front parlours, cobblers in the back; a bird-fancier in the first floor, three families on the second, starvation in the attics, Irishmen in the passage, a ‘musician’ in the front kitchen, a charwoman and five hungry children in the back one – filth everywhere – a gutter before the houses, and a drain behind – clothes drying, and slops emptying from the windows; ... men and women, in every variety of scanty and dirty apparel, lounging, scolding, drinking, smoking, squabbling, fighting, and swearing".

Dickens, Sketches by Boz, 1839.

Images for kids

Inside of a slum house, from Jacob Riis photo collection of New York City (ca 1890).
A slum dwelling in Toronto, Canada, about 1936.
A 1913 slum dwelling midst squalor in Ivry-sur-Seine, a French commune about 5 kilometers from center of Paris. Slums were scattered around Paris through the 1950s. After Loi Vivien was passed in July 1970, France demolished some of its last major bidonvilles (slums) and resettled resident Algerian, Portuguese and other migrant workers by the mid-1970s.
Kibera slum in Nairobi, Kenya, the second largest slum in Africa and third largest in the world.
A slum in Brazil. Rocinha favela is next to skyscrapers and wealthier parts of the city, a location that provides jobs and easy commute to those who live in the slums.
An integrated slum dwelling and informal economy inside Dharavi of Mumbai. Dharavi slum started in 1887 with industrial and segregationist policies of the British colonial era. The slum housing, tanneries, pottery and other economy established inside and around Dharavi during the British rule of India.
Makoko – One of the oldest slums in Nigeria, was originally a fishing village settlement, built on stilts on a lagoon. It developed into a slum and became home to about a hundred thousand people in Lagos. In 2012, it was destroyed by the city government, amidst controversy, to accommodate infrastructure for the city's growing population.
The contrast between the rich and the poor in La Paz, Bolivia.
A slum near Ramos Arizpe in Mexico.
A woman from a slum is taking a bath in a river.
The location of 30 largest "contiguous" mega-slums in the world. Numerous other regions have slums, but those slums are scattered. The numbers show population in millions per mega-slum, the initials are derived from city name. Some of the largest slums of the world are in areas of political or social conflicts.
Slum in Tai Hang, Hong Kong, in the 1990s
Substandard housing in a slum near Jakarta, Indonesia in the 2000s.
Slum with tiled roofs and railway, Jakarta railway slum resettlement 1975, Indonesia.
Slums in the city of Chau Doc, Vietnam over river Hậu (Mekong branch). These slums are on stilts to withstand routine floods which last 3 to 4 months every year.
A slum in Haiti damaged by 2010 earthquake. Slums are vulnerable to extensive damage and human fatalities from landslides, floods, earthquakes, fire, high winds and other severe weather.
A young boy sits over an open sewer in the Kibera slum, Nairobi.
Villa 31, one of the largest slums of Argentina, located near the center of Buenos Aires
Shibati slum in Chongqing, China. This slum is being demolished and residents relocated.
A slum dwelling in Borgergade in central Copenhagen Denmark, about 1940. The Danish government passed The Slum Clearance Act in 1939, demolished many slums including Borgergade, replacing it with modern buildings by the early 1950s.
Housing projects in Chalco, Mexico
Housing projects in Bahia, Brazil
Mea Shearim, Jerusalem