Shenzhen from above, August 2009

Shenzhen is a remarkably young city. It has officially been a city since 1979, a special economic zone since 1980. Someone realised it would be foolish not to make use of neighbouring Hong Kong, and the city began to grow at an incredible rate. Today it's the fastest-growing city in China, with about 14 million people, counting migrant workers. I won't bury you in facts about the place. I just want to share some photos I took from various heights during my stay.

And it's still growing fast. Putting up a skyscraper here takes hardly any time: within about a year a huge, fully finished building is ready, and it's almost always a one-off design that still somehow fits the look of the city. It's almost frightening to think what it will look like in ten years.