Ko Panyi, in Thailand, is a fishing village in Phang Nga province. Much of Ko Panyi sits on stilts, the houses don’t have a foundation, as we know it. The population of 200 families, between 1,500 and 2,000 people, comes from Muslims from Java.
The floating village Halong Bay, in Vietnam, counts 600 souls. It is a place of an almost magical calm, completely different from the busy streets of Vietnam. Here people live from fishing, the patches of land being too rocky to be cultivated. They sell fish to those who have larger boats and take them to the mainland.
Giethoorn is a village in the Dutch province of Overijssel. It is rightly dubbed ‘the Venice of Holland’ since a 7.5 km network of channels courses the settlement.
It was built in 1,230 by the people who have fled, for various reasons, from the Mediterranean. Currently, it has a population of 2,620 people. To note is that the water is not deeper than one meter, so a misstep brings only a refreshing bath.
Uros is one of the settlements built completely by people on Lake Titicaca. The 42 houses in Uros are temporary, people abandoning them and moving on when they are finally impossible to use. Are added new layers of reeds at every 2 weeks. People on the largest islands are living only from tourism, selling souvenirs to those who reach them. But those on small, isolated islands are living from traditional fishing and birds that they manage to catch.
Wuzhen is one of the oldest settlements built on water from China, with a history of 2,000 years back. Occupying an area of over 70 square kilometers, the city counts 60,000 inhabitants, of which 12,000 are permanent residents.
Kampong Ayer is a region that belongs to the capital of Brunei. 39,000 people live in the floating village, ie 10% of the total population of the state. All buildings here are built on stilts.
United by bridges, the buildings are served by water taxis. In the floating village there are schools, hospitals, restaurants, mosques, everything a community needs. Although at first glance the buildings seem dilapidated, sometimes even abandoned, in reality many are equipped with modern facilities, even air conditioning, satellite television, Internet access. People are living here for over 1,300 years.
There is also an African Venice, a settlement built on Lake Nokoue, near Cotonou. With a population of 20,000 people, Ganvie is probably the largest village built on a lake in Africa, being extremely popular among tourists.
Basis of the settlement were released early in the sixteenth and seventeenth century by the population Tofinu. In the beginning people were working in farms, now, apart from tourism, people earn their living from fishing and even fish farms.
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