Dharavi is a suburb in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. It has often been considered to be one of the world's largest slums. Dharavi has an area of just over and a population of about 1,000,000. With a population density of over , Dharavi is one of the most densely populated areas in the world. The Dharavi slum was founded in 1884 during the British colonial era, and grew because the expulsion of factories and residents from the peninsular city centre by the colonial government and from the migration of rural Indians into urban Mumbai. For this reason, Dharavi is currently a highly diverse settlement religiously and ethnically. 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 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 Bombay. Sanitation in the slums remains poor. Dharavi is often compared to Orangi slum in Karachi. While Orangi has double the population of Dharavi, it is spread over an area of 60 sq.km, about 30 times that of Dharavi. Effectively, Orangi slum dwellers have 15 times more land per capita than Dharavi. History In the 18th century, Dharavi was an island with a predominantly mangrove swamp. It was a sparsely populated village before the late 19th century, inhabited by Koli fishermen. Dharavi was then referred to as the village of Koliwada. Colonial era In the 1850s, 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 Bombay peninsula, the population density was over 10 times higher than London at that time. The most polluting industries were tanneries, and the first tannery moved from peninsular Bombay into Dharavi in 1887. People who worked with leather, typically a profession of lowest Hindu castes and of Muslim Indians, moved into Dharavi. Other early settlers included the Kumbhars, a large Gujarati community of potters. The colonial government granted them a 99-year land-lease in 1895. Rural migrants looking for jobs poured into Bombay, and its population soared past 1 million. Other artisans, like the embroidery workers from Uttar Pradesh, started the ready-made garments trade. These industries created jobs,