Throughout history humans have been forced to abandon their settlements due to natural disasters. Such occurrences still happen today, as the evacuation of Plymouth demonstrates. In the summer of 1995, the Soufrière Hills Volcano erupted violently, covering the southern region…
The world’s second largest man-made hole, Mirny was constructed by Stalin to satisfy the Soviet Union’s demand for industrial diamond. Further digging efforts were eventually abandoned when it became too difficult to continue digging this massive hole. The Ryugyong Hotel…
The Mojave desert, with its blisteringly hot summer sun, Joshua trees and bizarre rock formations, would not generally be the place one would choose to honor a man whose traditional home is the North Pole. Yet standing in the desert…
China’s building boom has created a ton of abandoned cities and massive ruins — most of which are brand new, and have never had people living in them. Here are the deserted Chinese cities, mostly built in the last 10…
This is Villa Epecuen, an old tourist town south of Buenos Aires that spent a quarter of a century underwater. Established in the 1920s on the banks of a salt lake, the town was home to over 5,000 residents…
The entire civilian population was evacuated in 1943 to provide an exercise area for American troops preparing for the invasion of Europe during the Second World War. After the war villagers were not allowed to return to their homes. The…
The New Orleans amusement park Jazzland opened in 2000, and the lease was purchased by Six Flags in 2002. The park was upgraded a year later and renamed Six Flags New Orleans, with a Mardi Gras-themed area and a respectable…
[portfolio_slideshow size=full] This may look like your average German suburb on a quiet day, but it’s actually a planned community 30 kilometers outside of Shanghai. This is Anting German Town, a one-square-kilometer residential development founded in 2001 and built specifically…
What in the world could cause an entire city to be abandoned? Some become unlivable due to environmental disasters such as earthquakes and tsunamis to nuclear meltdowns (as with Pripyat, shown below). Others become the center of military activity and…
Following our article last year on Ordos, it appears it inspired these cool skaters… Ordos is a ghost metropole located in Inner Mongolia built for 1 million people, but there is currently only few thousands of inhabitants living there. It…
Craco is located in the Region of Basilicata and the Province of Matera. About 25 miles inland from the Gulf of Taranto at the instep of the “boot” of Italy. This medieval town is typical of those in the area,…
Kolmanskop is a ghost town in southern Namibia, a few kilometres inland from the port of Lüderitz. In 1908, Luederitz was plunged into diamond fever and people rushed into the Namib desert hoping to make an easy fortune. Within two…
