Location: Tai O, Hong Kong
Tai O, a fishing village on the remote western coast of Hong Kong's Lantau Island, is not quite the same thing as Tolkien's Laketown, also called Esgaroth, but it's close. The latter is lofted up on stilts buried deep into a lake and populated by enterprising traders who make do despite the ever present threat of the wrathful Smaug. The former is also a town built largely above water and home to generations of industrious fisherfolk, and for decades they've lived just miles south of communist China.