Dharavi

Dharavi धारावी
Neighbourhood
One of the entrances to Dharavi from the Sion-Mahim road
Dharavi
Coordinates: 19°02′25″N 72°51′03″E / 19.040208°N 72.85085°E / 19.040208; 72.85085Coordinates: 19°02′25″N 72°51′03″E / 19.040208°N 72.85085°E / 19.040208; 72.85085
Country	India
State	Maharashtra
Metro	Mumbai
Area
• Total	2.165 km2 (0.836 sq mi)
Population
• Estimate (2016)	between 600,000–1,000,000
Languages
• Official	Marathi
Time zone	IST (UTC+5:30)
PIN CODE	400017
Telephone Code	022
Vehicle registration	MH-02
Civic agency	BMC

Dharavi is a locality in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. Its slum is one of the largest in the world; home to between roughly 700,000 to about 1 million people, Dharavi is currently the second-largest slum in the continent of Asia and the third-largest slum in the world. With an area of just over 2.1 square kilometres (0.81 sq mi) and a population density of over 277,136/km² (717,780/sq mi), Dharavi is also one of the most densely populated areas on Earth.

The Dharavi slum was founded in 1882 during the British colonial era, and grew in part because of an expulsion of factories and residents from the peninsular city centre by the colonial government, and from the migration of poor rural Indians into urban Mumbai (then called Bombay). For this reason, Dharavi is currently a highly multi-religious, multi-ethnic, and diverse settlement.

Dharavi has an active informal economy in which numerous household enterprises employ many of the slum residents– leather, textiles and pottery products are among the goods made inside Dharavi. The total annual turnover has been estimated at over US$1 billion.

Dharavi has suffered from many epidemics and other disasters, including a widespread plague in 1896 which killed over half of the population of Mumbai.

In the 18th century, Dharavi was an island with predominantly mangrove swamp.[15][16]. Daravi is a historical spelling of the area. It was a sparsely populated village before the late 19th century, inhabited by Koli fishermen. Dharavi was then referred to as the village of Koliwadas.

Mumbai has been one of the centers of India's urbanization for 200 years. At the middle of the 19th century, after decades of urban growth under East India Company and British Raj, the city's population reached half a million. The urban area then covered mostly the southern extension of Mumbai peninsula, the population density was over 10 times higher than London at that time. Most parts of Mumbai faced an acute shortage of housing and serious problems with the provision of water, sanitation and drainage. Residential areas were segregated in Mumbai between European and 'native' residential quarters. Slums were heavily concentrated in areas meant for 'native' Indian population, and it attracted no planning or London-like investment for quality of life of its inhabitants. Unsanitary conditions plagued Mumbai, particularly in the so-called Native Town, the segregated section where Indians lived. In 1869, as with 19th century epidemics in European slums, bubonic plague spread in Mumbai and then across most of India. The epidemic killed nearly 200,000 people in Mumbai and 8 million in India. In 1880s, concerned about epidemics, the British colonial government expelled polluting industries and many Indian residents of the Native Town, away from the peninsular part of the city, to a distant edge of the city in the north in the village of Koliwadas. Thus was born Dharavi.