Shanty town in the context of "Slums"

A slum is a derogatory term for a highly populated urban residential area consisting of densely packed housing units of weak build quality and often associated with poverty. The infrastructure in slums is often deteriorated or incomplete, and they are primarily inhabited by impoverished people.

Although slums are usually located in urban areas, they can be located in suburban areas where housing quality is low and living conditions are poor. Slum residences vary from shanty houses to professionally built dwellings which, because of poor-quality construction or lack of basic maintenance, have deteriorated. While slums differ in size and other characteristics, most lack reliable sanitation services, supply of clean water, reliable electricity, law enforcement, and other basic services. The United Nations defines slums as ".... informal settlements lacking one or more of the following conditions: access to improved water, access to improved sanitation, sufficient living area, housing durability, and security of tenure."

Pueblos jóvenes (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈpweβlos ˈxoβenes] , lit. 'young towns') is the term used for the shanty towns that surround Lima and other cities of Peru. Many of these towns have developed into districts of Lima such as Comas, Los Olivos and Villa El Salvador.

The Ribblehead Viaduct or Batty Moss Viaduct carries the Settle–Carlisle railway across Batty Moss in the Ribble Valley at Ribblehead, in North Yorkshire, England. The viaduct, built by the Midland Railway, is 28 miles (45 km) north-west of Skipton and 26 miles (42 km) south-east of Kendal. It is a Grade II* listed structure. Ribblehead Viaduct is the longest and the third tallest structure on the Settle–Carlisle line.

The viaduct was designed by John Sydney Crossley, chief engineer of the Midland Railway, who was responsible for the design and construction of all major structures along the line. The viaduct was necessitated by the challenging terrain of the route. Construction began in late 1869. It necessitated a large workforce, up to 2,300 men, most of whom lived in shanty towns set up near its base. Over 100 men lost their lives during its construction. The Settle to Carlisle line was the last main railway in Britain to be constructed primarily with manual labour.

Villa miseria (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈbiʝa miˈseɾja]), villa de emergencia or simply villa, is the informal term used in Argentina for shanty town slums.

An asentamiento irregular, known colloquially as an asentamiento (Spanish pronunciation: [asentaˈmjento]) is a shanty town in Latin America, particularly around Guatemala City and Montevideo. Most have been established in the last 20 years as a result of economic inequalities between rural and metropolitan areas in Guatemala and Uruguay.

In South Africa, the terms township and location usually refer to an under-developed, racially segregated urban area, from the late 19th century until the end of apartheid, which were reserved for non-whites, namely Black Africans, Coloureds and Indians. Townships were usually built on the periphery of towns and cities. The term township also has a distinct legal meaning in South Africa's system of land title, which carries no racial connotations.

Townships for non-whites were also called locations or lokasies in Afrikaans and are often still referred to as such in the smaller towns. The slang term "kasie / kasi", a popular short version of "lokasie" is also used. Townships sometimes have large informal settlements nearby.

The Calais Jungle (known officially as Camp de la Lande) was a refugee and immigrant encampment in the vicinity of Calais, France, that existed from January 2015 to October 2016. There had been other camps known as "jungles" in previous years, but this particular shanty town drew global media attention during the peak of the European migrant crisis in 2015, when its population grew rapidly. Migrants stayed at the camp while they attempted to enter the United Kingdom, or while they waited for their French asylum claims to be processed.

The camp was located on a former landfill site to the east of Calais. By July 2015, it had 3,000 inhabitants and continued to grow. Although estimates of the number of migrants differed, a Help Refugees (now Choose Love) census gave a figure of 8,143 people just before the camp's demolition in October 2016. As well as residences, the Jungle contained shops, restaurants, hairdressers, schools, places of worship and a boxing club.

Cité Soleil (French pronunciation: [site sɔlɛj]; Haitian Creole: Site Solèy; English: Sun City) is an extremely impoverished and densely populated commune located in the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area in Haiti. Cité Soleil originally developed as a shanty town and grew to an estimated 200,000 to 400,000 residents, the majority of whom live in extreme poverty. The area is generally regarded as one of the poorest and most dangerous areas of the Western Hemisphere and it is one of the biggest slums in the Northern Hemisphere. The area has virtually no sewers and has a poorly maintained open canal system that serves as its sewage system, few formal businesses but many local commercial activities and enterprises, sporadic but largely unpaid for electricity, a few hospitals, and two government schools, Lycée Nationale de Cité Soleil, and École Nationale de Cité Soleil.

For several years until 2007, the area was ruled by a number of gangs, each controlling their own sectors. Government control was reestablished after a series of operations in early 2007 by the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) with the participation of the local population. After the devastating 2010 earthquake, it took nearly two weeks for relief aid to arrive in Cité-Soleil.