Abandoned places are captivating, as they often give us a direct glimpse of what life must have been like in the past. There are some locations that seem as if they are places that time forgot, as if life has ceased to exist.
This Soviet ghost town is technically located within a country called The Autonomous Republic of Abkhazia, which is only officially recognized by five other countries. To the rest of the world, these are just the remains of another Georgian town that supplied the Soviet industrial machine.
The town was constructed back in the 1940s to supply coal to the Soviets. As such, it was built to last long into the future. However, during the war of independence in the early 1990s, the town fell to Georgian forces. Tkvarcheli was occupied by the Georgians for more than a year, until Abkhaz forces reclaimed the town with the help of the Russians.
Sadly for the town, it was too late, as the Soviet era was already in decline. The population of the town steadily dwindled until it was eventually abandoned for good. Nowadays, it serves as a creepy reminder of life at the height of the Soviet Union.
At first glance, it’s not hard to see why this island was nicknamed “Battleship Island.” Approached from the water, it really does look like a giant concrete battleship, thanks to its high sea walls. But the history behind this small island isn’t nearly as pretty as its panoramic views.
Hashima was a coal mining town from 1887–1974, which aided in the industrialization of Japan. Naturally, mining is back-breaking work, so the demand for workers was high. By 1959, there were 5,259 miners living on the island, crammed into just 16 acres of land. As one of the most densely populated areas in the world, living conditions soon declined to prison-like levels.
In the 1960s, petroleum started to replace coal. Many mines throughout Japan were shut down shortly thereafter, including Hashima in 1974. Within a matter of weeks, one of the most densely populated places on Earth was deserted, and the island was left to rot and weather the elements.
The town of Kitsault sits in the province of British Columbia, Canada. It featured more than 100 homes, 200 apartments, a hospital, a shopping mall, a movie theater, a sports center, and a bank. What more could you ask for this far up north? The only missing thing is the people.
The town formed in 1979 around the steel production industry after a molybdenum source was found nearby. For a while, all was well, but the town’s fate was sealed when the price of molybdenum crashed. As a result, the mine was shut down, and by 1983, Kitsault had turned into a ghost town almost overnight.
The town may possibly have found a saving grace, however, in the form of an entrepreneur who bought the place for $5 million in 2004. He hopes to resurrect the town from its slumber, but only time will tell if the plan is successful.
In the 1940s, the apartment was owned by a Mrs. De Florian, who fled south just before World War II broke out. She left her apartment locked, never to return again, which is how it remained for 70 years. After De Florian passed away, the apartment was finally opened for her heirs to take inventory. Underneath layers of cobwebs and dust, everything was found just as De Florian had left it, including a stunning painting of a woman dressed in pink.
Along with this painting, the inventory team also found a couple of old love letters, which were neatly wrapped in ribbon. Most love letters are only interesting to the people who sent or received them, but these ones were much more than pretty words on paper—they were confirmed to have been written by Giovanni Boldini, who was one of the most influential painters of the Belle Epoque. He was the artist behind the painting, which depicted De Florian’s grandmother, a high-society French actress and courtesan. The painting was later sold for a staggering 2.1 million Euros ($2.85 million USD).
Although at first glance, this structure looks like a giant concrete saucer on top of a mountain, Buzludzha is actually a monument dedicated to communism. The story behind its inception goes all the way back to 1891, when Bulgaria’s socialist faction met on this exact spot to discuss Bulgaria’s future. Construction began in 1974, and the building was richly decorated with an abundance of Bulgarian and Soviet symbols, including a series of colorful mosaic frescoes on the walls. Perhaps the most impressive feature of the Buzludzha Monument is the colossal hammer and sickle in the middle of the dome ceiling.
Sadly, this beautiful building eventually fell to squalor, as the Bulgarian communist party disbanded following a revolution in 1989. Ownership of the monument was transferred to the government, which simply sealed off the main entrance and left it to be ravaged by vandalism and the elements.
The town of Doel is 700 years old, but in an effort to expand the nearby harbor, the Belgian government scheduled the town for demolition and forced its residents to move. Subsequently, Doel turned into a ghost town, silently awaiting its demolition. The few citizens who refused to leave took an unusual stand against their predicament, bringing in street artists from all over Europe and encouraging them to turn Doel into their personal canvas as a form of protest.
The end result was spectacular, as the walls of the all-but-abandoned town transformed into a life-size living art gallery. The contrast between the old, historic buildings and the layers of modern graffiti that adorn them is breathtaking. Only 25 residents remain in this post-apocalyptic artistic paradise, and their future in Doel looks bleak. Demolition is still on the horizon, and they’ll all have to leave once the wrecking ball comes.
Known as the setting for the classic film Blue Hawaii, the island resort of Coco Palms is anything but a tropical paradise. The resort opened in 1953, and thanks to some marketing for the film Miss Sadie Thompson by MGM, business did not take long to pick up. However, once Elvis Presley arrived to film the instant hit Blue Hawaii, the resort became a runaway success. Couples from all over the globe, including A-list celebrities, wanted to spend their vacations and honeymoons on Elvis’s island nirvana.
For a few decades, it appeared that Coco Palms was here to stay, but in 1992, it fell victim to Hurricane Iniki. Most of the island was badly hit, and the resort couldn’t escape the colossal repair bills. Many insurance companies went bankrupt in the aftermath of the storm, so many repairs could not even be performed. This sent the whole island into a recession, from which the resort would never recover.
Still in tatters from the storm, the property was soon overtaken by vandals and thieves. Cottage 56, the suite where Elvis stayed, was an especially popular target. Although many redevelopment and restoration plans have been proposed, the resort is still a long way from recapturing its glory days.
The story behind Two Guns, originally called Canyon Lodge, is a sad one. It all started in the 1920s, when the infamous Route 66 gained massive traffic from adventurous travelers. Many of these travelers stopped for supplies at Canyon Lodge, which was just a small trading post run by Earle and Louise Cundiff at the time. The town’s success quickly caught the attention of the entrepreneur Harry “Two Guns” Miller, who recognized the the vast amounts of wealth to be gained there. He convinced the Cundiffs to lease him the site for 10 years and renamed the town. Under Miller’s command, the town was transformed into a full-blown tourist trap, complete with its own zoo and attractions.
One of these so called “attractions” was a nearby canyon, which was the site of a battle between the Apaches and the Navajos. Inside the canyon was a cave called the Apache Death Cave, which served as a tomb for 42 Apache men. Although the cave’s backstory is fascinating in its own right, Miller decided that it wasn’t intriguing enough for his tourists. He renamed it “Mystery Cave,” built fake ruins, sold the Apache skulls as souvenirs, and perhaps most egregiously, added a soda stand.
The town soon fell victim to a major robbery, which made relations between Miller and the Cundiffs very tense, culminating in a heated argument during which Miller shot Earle Cundiff dead. Incredibly, Miller was acquitted at trial, but shortly thereafter, he was attacked twice by mountain lions and bitten by a Gila monster. This trail of bad luck finally reached a tipping point in 1929, when a fire burned down the whole town. After losing a court battle with Louise Cundiff to keep the land, Miller left. Route 66 was rerouted to the opposite canyon, and Two Guns slowly faded into obscurity, its golden days long behind it.
In the middle of the Sinai desert lies a mysterious cinema that never saw an audience. Information about this place is very scarce, and it leaves us with more questions than answers.
The oddly situated setup was built by a French film buff named Diynn Eadel in the 1990s. Somehow, Eadel managed to secure the necessary building permits and convinced Parisian investors to buy seats and projectors from the old theaters of Cairo. The resulting arrangement, which would seat 700 people, sadly never saw an opening night, and no one seems to know why. The theater might have gone unnoticed for years had it not gathered attention from the media recently after it was vandalized and destroyed, most likely for scrap metal.
Looking as if it came straight out of a post-apocalyptic world, the Salton Riviera is one of the most awe-inspiring locations on Earth. It was built around the Salton Sea, the largest body of water in California, which was amazingly created by accident when a flood poured in from the Colorado River over the course of two years at the turn of the century.
Many thought that the floodwater would eventually dry out, but years went by seemingly without a drop of evaporation. Developers soon recognized the opportunity the lake presented and built a full-fledged resort upon it, advertised as the “Miracle in the Desert.” The Salton Sea, as it had been named, became the French Riviera of California. Tourists flocked to the resort from all over the country, and many even settled down in a place that had once been uninhabitable desert.
However, this paradise would not last forever. Since the lake was only fed by agricultural runoff, the water became increasingly saltier over the years. Millions of dead fish floated to the surface of the lake, whose white sandy beaches were soon covered in their bones. All the tourists fled from the town, which had become overpowered by the stench of rotten fish. Almost overnight, the Salton Riviera was abandoned, left to become the toxic wasteland that it is today.
And then there are places where time stands still. Whether frozen in time by natural disaster or simply left behind because no one cared to stay, these spots stand virtually undisturbed, encapsulating a moment of the past.
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Credit: Thomas Hawk/Flickr/CC BY-NC 2.0
Credit: David McNew/Getty
Within a few decades, though, the disaster of the Salton Sea became apparent. With no outlet, the lake concentrated both salt and agricultural runoff, turning it into a stinking environmental disaster, complete with piles of dead fish along the shore. Most of the buildings near the lake have been abandoned, and local authorities have agreed to let the Salton Sea wither. As of 2018, 40 percent less water is being directed into the Salton Sea than at its inception, according to The Verge, which will gradually lower the lake level by 20 feet (6 meters). As lake turns to dust, more residents may flee, according to The Verge; the air in the Imperial Valley is among the worst in the country.
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Credit: Sean Gallup/Getty
The buildings left behind are full of shattered glass and abandoned furniture. An abandoned Ferris wheel sits by a long-unused merry-go-round. Nature has reclaimed the catastrophe zone, with wolves, moose and wild boar roaming where humans used to bustle.
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Founded in the early 1900s after diamonds were discovered in the region, Kolmanskop was built by the Germans who controlled what is now Namibia at the time. The architecture is oddly Teutonic, with arched windows and wrought-iron railings. According to the now-ghost-town's website, residents survived thanks to water trucked in from 75 miles (120 kilometers) away. By the 1920s, the diamond mines were drying up and new deposits were found elsewhere. The town shrank rapidly, and it was finally abandoned for good in 1956.
Credit: Chao-Wei Juan/Flickr/CC BY-NC 2.0
Credit: Ville Miettinen/Flickr/CC BY-NC 2.0
Credit: Shutterstock
But Italy is a seismically active place, and the slopes where Craco was built are steep and unstable. In the mid-1900s, earthquakes and landslides damaged the town. In 1963, the last residents left, relocated to another village nearby. Today, the abandoned town is a historical site and tourist attraction.
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After the war, France decided to leave the village as it was in memory of the massacre. A Centre de la Mémoire stands at the sight to guide visitors through the abandoned buildings and execution sites. The village crypt contains artifacts like watches and clocks stopped at the time of the fires.
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Bodie, California, is one of those towns. Gold was discovered in the area near Mono Lake in 1875, according to the California Department of Parks and Recreation. The town of Bodie sprung up to house the miners working the vein. Since 1962, the former mine town has been a designated National Historic Site and a state park, left as it was when the last residents moved on.
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Angkor is no longer a metropolis, but a UNESCO World Heritage site that archaeologists and conservationists are trying to save from encroaching jungle and damage by modern tourists. More than 100,000 people still live in the shadow of the temple, many living an agrarian lifestyle like the generations that came before them.
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Tyneham residents, all 225 of them, were told they'd get to return to their village after the war, but the government ended up keeping the land for military training. The village has been empty since and is now in ruins. Stone and brick buildings stand quietly, their roofs and windows long-gone. Visitors are allowed in on weekends, and the old church has been reopened. It's used for occasional concerts and special services.
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One of the mining towns that sprung up in this saltpeter rush was Humberstone, founded in 1872. It was once home to more than 3,000 people, mainly saltpeter diggers and refiners and their families. But during World War I, Allied powers blocked Germany from importing saltpeter, and the Germans developed synthetic fertilizers in response. Saltpeter lost its value. Humberstone became a ghost town. The dry desert air has kept the rot away, and many of the town's buildings stand just as they did a century ago.
Tkvarcheli, Georgia
This Soviet ghost town is technically located within a country called The Autonomous Republic of Abkhazia, which is only officially recognized by five other countries. To the rest of the world, these are just the remains of another Georgian town that supplied the Soviet industrial machine.
The town was constructed back in the 1940s to supply coal to the Soviets. As such, it was built to last long into the future. However, during the war of independence in the early 1990s, the town fell to Georgian forces. Tkvarcheli was occupied by the Georgians for more than a year, until Abkhaz forces reclaimed the town with the help of the Russians.
Sadly for the town, it was too late, as the Soviet era was already in decline. The population of the town steadily dwindled until it was eventually abandoned for good. Nowadays, it serves as a creepy reminder of life at the height of the Soviet Union.
Hashima Island, Japan
At first glance, it’s not hard to see why this island was nicknamed “Battleship Island.” Approached from the water, it really does look like a giant concrete battleship, thanks to its high sea walls. But the history behind this small island isn’t nearly as pretty as its panoramic views.
Hashima was a coal mining town from 1887–1974, which aided in the industrialization of Japan. Naturally, mining is back-breaking work, so the demand for workers was high. By 1959, there were 5,259 miners living on the island, crammed into just 16 acres of land. As one of the most densely populated areas in the world, living conditions soon declined to prison-like levels.
In the 1960s, petroleum started to replace coal. Many mines throughout Japan were shut down shortly thereafter, including Hashima in 1974. Within a matter of weeks, one of the most densely populated places on Earth was deserted, and the island was left to rot and weather the elements.
Kitsault, Canada
The town of Kitsault sits in the province of British Columbia, Canada. It featured more than 100 homes, 200 apartments, a hospital, a shopping mall, a movie theater, a sports center, and a bank. What more could you ask for this far up north? The only missing thing is the people.
The town formed in 1979 around the steel production industry after a molybdenum source was found nearby. For a while, all was well, but the town’s fate was sealed when the price of molybdenum crashed. As a result, the mine was shut down, and by 1983, Kitsault had turned into a ghost town almost overnight.
The town may possibly have found a saving grace, however, in the form of an entrepreneur who bought the place for $5 million in 2004. He hopes to resurrect the town from its slumber, but only time will tell if the plan is successful.
The Parisian Time Capsule Apartment
Time capsules are always fascinating, as they provide a direct, unobstructed view into the past. Although most time capsules found nowadays are intentional, it’s exciting to stumble upon accidental ones like this amazing apartment in Paris.In the 1940s, the apartment was owned by a Mrs. De Florian, who fled south just before World War II broke out. She left her apartment locked, never to return again, which is how it remained for 70 years. After De Florian passed away, the apartment was finally opened for her heirs to take inventory. Underneath layers of cobwebs and dust, everything was found just as De Florian had left it, including a stunning painting of a woman dressed in pink.
Along with this painting, the inventory team also found a couple of old love letters, which were neatly wrapped in ribbon. Most love letters are only interesting to the people who sent or received them, but these ones were much more than pretty words on paper—they were confirmed to have been written by Giovanni Boldini, who was one of the most influential painters of the Belle Epoque. He was the artist behind the painting, which depicted De Florian’s grandmother, a high-society French actress and courtesan. The painting was later sold for a staggering 2.1 million Euros ($2.85 million USD).
The Buzludzha Monument, Bulgaria
Although at first glance, this structure looks like a giant concrete saucer on top of a mountain, Buzludzha is actually a monument dedicated to communism. The story behind its inception goes all the way back to 1891, when Bulgaria’s socialist faction met on this exact spot to discuss Bulgaria’s future. Construction began in 1974, and the building was richly decorated with an abundance of Bulgarian and Soviet symbols, including a series of colorful mosaic frescoes on the walls. Perhaps the most impressive feature of the Buzludzha Monument is the colossal hammer and sickle in the middle of the dome ceiling.
Sadly, this beautiful building eventually fell to squalor, as the Bulgarian communist party disbanded following a revolution in 1989. Ownership of the monument was transferred to the government, which simply sealed off the main entrance and left it to be ravaged by vandalism and the elements.
Doel, Belgium
The town of Doel is 700 years old, but in an effort to expand the nearby harbor, the Belgian government scheduled the town for demolition and forced its residents to move. Subsequently, Doel turned into a ghost town, silently awaiting its demolition. The few citizens who refused to leave took an unusual stand against their predicament, bringing in street artists from all over Europe and encouraging them to turn Doel into their personal canvas as a form of protest.
The end result was spectacular, as the walls of the all-but-abandoned town transformed into a life-size living art gallery. The contrast between the old, historic buildings and the layers of modern graffiti that adorn them is breathtaking. Only 25 residents remain in this post-apocalyptic artistic paradise, and their future in Doel looks bleak. Demolition is still on the horizon, and they’ll all have to leave once the wrecking ball comes.
Coco Palms, Hawaii
Known as the setting for the classic film Blue Hawaii, the island resort of Coco Palms is anything but a tropical paradise. The resort opened in 1953, and thanks to some marketing for the film Miss Sadie Thompson by MGM, business did not take long to pick up. However, once Elvis Presley arrived to film the instant hit Blue Hawaii, the resort became a runaway success. Couples from all over the globe, including A-list celebrities, wanted to spend their vacations and honeymoons on Elvis’s island nirvana.
For a few decades, it appeared that Coco Palms was here to stay, but in 1992, it fell victim to Hurricane Iniki. Most of the island was badly hit, and the resort couldn’t escape the colossal repair bills. Many insurance companies went bankrupt in the aftermath of the storm, so many repairs could not even be performed. This sent the whole island into a recession, from which the resort would never recover.
Still in tatters from the storm, the property was soon overtaken by vandals and thieves. Cottage 56, the suite where Elvis stayed, was an especially popular target. Although many redevelopment and restoration plans have been proposed, the resort is still a long way from recapturing its glory days.
Two Guns, Arizona
The story behind Two Guns, originally called Canyon Lodge, is a sad one. It all started in the 1920s, when the infamous Route 66 gained massive traffic from adventurous travelers. Many of these travelers stopped for supplies at Canyon Lodge, which was just a small trading post run by Earle and Louise Cundiff at the time. The town’s success quickly caught the attention of the entrepreneur Harry “Two Guns” Miller, who recognized the the vast amounts of wealth to be gained there. He convinced the Cundiffs to lease him the site for 10 years and renamed the town. Under Miller’s command, the town was transformed into a full-blown tourist trap, complete with its own zoo and attractions.
One of these so called “attractions” was a nearby canyon, which was the site of a battle between the Apaches and the Navajos. Inside the canyon was a cave called the Apache Death Cave, which served as a tomb for 42 Apache men. Although the cave’s backstory is fascinating in its own right, Miller decided that it wasn’t intriguing enough for his tourists. He renamed it “Mystery Cave,” built fake ruins, sold the Apache skulls as souvenirs, and perhaps most egregiously, added a soda stand.
The town soon fell victim to a major robbery, which made relations between Miller and the Cundiffs very tense, culminating in a heated argument during which Miller shot Earle Cundiff dead. Incredibly, Miller was acquitted at trial, but shortly thereafter, he was attacked twice by mountain lions and bitten by a Gila monster. This trail of bad luck finally reached a tipping point in 1929, when a fire burned down the whole town. After losing a court battle with Louise Cundiff to keep the land, Miller left. Route 66 was rerouted to the opposite canyon, and Two Guns slowly faded into obscurity, its golden days long behind it.
The Cinema At The End Of The World
In the middle of the Sinai desert lies a mysterious cinema that never saw an audience. Information about this place is very scarce, and it leaves us with more questions than answers.
The oddly situated setup was built by a French film buff named Diynn Eadel in the 1990s. Somehow, Eadel managed to secure the necessary building permits and convinced Parisian investors to buy seats and projectors from the old theaters of Cairo. The resulting arrangement, which would seat 700 people, sadly never saw an opening night, and no one seems to know why. The theater might have gone unnoticed for years had it not gathered attention from the media recently after it was vandalized and destroyed, most likely for scrap metal.
Salton Riviera, California
Looking as if it came straight out of a post-apocalyptic world, the Salton Riviera is one of the most awe-inspiring locations on Earth. It was built around the Salton Sea, the largest body of water in California, which was amazingly created by accident when a flood poured in from the Colorado River over the course of two years at the turn of the century.
Many thought that the floodwater would eventually dry out, but years went by seemingly without a drop of evaporation. Developers soon recognized the opportunity the lake presented and built a full-fledged resort upon it, advertised as the “Miracle in the Desert.” The Salton Sea, as it had been named, became the French Riviera of California. Tourists flocked to the resort from all over the country, and many even settled down in a place that had once been uninhabitable desert.
However, this paradise would not last forever. Since the lake was only fed by agricultural runoff, the water became increasingly saltier over the years. Millions of dead fish floated to the surface of the lake, whose white sandy beaches were soon covered in their bones. All the tourists fled from the town, which had become overpowered by the stench of rotten fish. Almost overnight, the Salton Riviera was abandoned, left to become the toxic wasteland that it is today.
Where time stands still
There are places in this world that never stop changing, like Rome — built on the ruins and debris of its previous iterations — or New York, with its ever-rising skyline.And then there are places where time stands still. Whether frozen in time by natural disaster or simply left behind because no one cared to stay, these spots stand virtually undisturbed, encapsulating a moment of the past.
Credit: Shutterstock
Pompeii
The ancient city of Pompeii was arrested in time in A.D. 79 by Mount Vesuvius. The volcano buried the town and any inhabitants who could not evacuate in a thick layer of volcanic ash. The bodies of the dead decomposed, leaving behind voids in the ash that archaeologists later filled with plaster and excavated, resulting in the eerie death casts that made Pompeii famous. But the volcano preserved other things too, from advanced plumbing facilities to colorful carved frescos and graffiti. Excavations have revealed the nitty-gritty details of life in A.D. 79, including at-home first aid equipment and tiny barbecues that probably cooked quick, casual meals.Credit: Thomas Hawk/Flickr/CC BY-NC 2.0
Two Guns, Arizona
Among the American West's weirder ghost towns is Two Guns, an abandoned roadside attraction. According to Atlas Obscura, Two Guns was nothing but a few scattered homesteads until the early 1920s, when it became a travel stop on what would morph into the famous Route 66. An eccentric entrepreneur named Harry Miller leased the site, building a mini-zoo and fake Native American ruins. Exploiting the late 19th-century deaths of a group of Apache warriors killed during a battle with the Navajo people, Miller gave tours of the cave where they died and even sold skulls he said were from those Apache. Miller later shot the landowner who leased him the land, but was acquitted. In 1929, after a fire and a legal battle over the land ownership, Miller left. Route 66 soon left too, rerouted across the canyon. Two Guns changed hands a few times before burning down again in 1971. Today, only a few stone buildings and part of the old zoo's mountain lion enclosure remain.Credit: David McNew/Getty
Salton Riviera, California
When the Salton Sea formed, quite by accident in 1905, people called it a miracle. Thanks to an irrigation accident, water from the Colorado River filled a formerly dry lakebed in southeastern California. The resulting lake, the Salton Sea, became a resort attraction (it's still a state recreation area today).Within a few decades, though, the disaster of the Salton Sea became apparent. With no outlet, the lake concentrated both salt and agricultural runoff, turning it into a stinking environmental disaster, complete with piles of dead fish along the shore. Most of the buildings near the lake have been abandoned, and local authorities have agreed to let the Salton Sea wither. As of 2018, 40 percent less water is being directed into the Salton Sea than at its inception, according to The Verge, which will gradually lower the lake level by 20 feet (6 meters). As lake turns to dust, more residents may flee, according to The Verge; the air in the Imperial Valley is among the worst in the country.
Credit: Shutterstock
Hashima Island, Japan
Once the site of a major coal-mining operation and home to more than 5,000 people, Japan's Hashima Island is now heavily built up — but empty. The island is a mere 16 acres (6.3 hectares) in area and is almost entirely covered by the marks of humanity: a seawall, multi-story buildings and an abandoned shrine. The island was abandoned in 1974 after all its coal was depleted. In 2009, it opened to tourism, and, in 2015, it became a UNESCO World Heritage Site. If you can't get there in person, you can tour the island in great detail via Google Earth.Credit: Sean Gallup/Getty
Pripyat, Ukraine
It was a bit like a modern Pompeii. On April 26, 1986, an explosion at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant caused the release of 5 percent of the reactor's radioactive core. According to the World Nuclear Association, 28 people perished in the following weeks because of acute radiation sickness. In the nearby town of Pripyat, 45,000 people had to leave overnight; ultimately, more than 220,000 people would have to evacuate the contaminated zone around the plant.The buildings left behind are full of shattered glass and abandoned furniture. An abandoned Ferris wheel sits by a long-unused merry-go-round. Nature has reclaimed the catastrophe zone, with wolves, moose and wild boar roaming where humans used to bustle.
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Kolmanskop, Namiba
The bone-dry Namib Desert is a hard place for life to survive. The town of Kolmanskop didn't manage to.Founded in the early 1900s after diamonds were discovered in the region, Kolmanskop was built by the Germans who controlled what is now Namibia at the time. The architecture is oddly Teutonic, with arched windows and wrought-iron railings. According to the now-ghost-town's website, residents survived thanks to water trucked in from 75 miles (120 kilometers) away. By the 1920s, the diamond mines were drying up and new deposits were found elsewhere. The town shrank rapidly, and it was finally abandoned for good in 1956.
Credit: Chao-Wei Juan/Flickr/CC BY-NC 2.0
Sanzhi UFO Houses
The Sanzhi UFO Houses were a row of oddly shaped pod-like buildings put up in the late 1970s as a resort on the northern tip of Taiwan. The two-story pod-buildings were never finished, but they were painted a cheery pink and yellow, making them look as though some friendly futuristic extraterrestrial had just dashed down to the store for a cup of sugar and might be back at any minute. These odd ghost buildings wouldn't last forever, though; they were demolished in 2010 to make way for new development.Credit: Ville Miettinen/Flickr/CC BY-NC 2.0
Deception Island, Antarctica
Can something qualify as a ghost town if it's on a largely uninhabited continent? Deception Island might. This outpost in Antarctica has been a whaling station and the site of several scientific labs, but it's also the caldera of an active volcano. In 1967 and 1969, that volcano erupted, destroying the British and Chilean scientific stations that were active at the time. According to Atlas Obscura, the island is now visited by the occasional seasonal science team and by tourists who enjoy views of the place's deserted airplane hangar and rusting boilers and tanks.Credit: Shutterstock
Craco, Italy
Located in the "instep" of Italy's boot, the village of Craco dates to A.D. 1060 (though monks and earlier settlers lived in this rugged region prior to that time). Throughout the Middle Ages, about 1,500 people lived in Craco at any given time. It had four plazas, multiple churches, and, by the 1800s, it was big enough to be split into two districts, according to the local historical society.But Italy is a seismically active place, and the slopes where Craco was built are steep and unstable. In the mid-1900s, earthquakes and landslides damaged the town. In 1963, the last residents left, relocated to another village nearby. Today, the abandoned town is a historical site and tourist attraction.
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Oradour-sur-Glane, France
A tragic casualty of World War II, Oradour-sur-Glane was destroyed by the Waffen SS in 1944. It was a horrific atrocity. On June 10 of that year, Nazi forces entered the village and rounded up its citizenry on the pretense of doing identity checks. Instead, they separated the village's men from its women and children and began to massacre them. They killed 642 men, women and children, then set the village on fire. Only a handful of people survived.After the war, France decided to leave the village as it was in memory of the massacre. A Centre de la Mémoire stands at the sight to guide visitors through the abandoned buildings and execution sites. The village crypt contains artifacts like watches and clocks stopped at the time of the fires.
Credit: Shutterstock
Bodie, California
California's Gold Rush brought an influx of settlers hoping to strike it rich in gold. These settlers built boomtowns almost overnight — and abandoned them just as quickly when the gold veins tapped out.Bodie, California, is one of those towns. Gold was discovered in the area near Mono Lake in 1875, according to the California Department of Parks and Recreation. The town of Bodie sprung up to house the miners working the vein. Since 1962, the former mine town has been a designated National Historic Site and a state park, left as it was when the last residents moved on.
- Credit: Chao-Wei Juan/Flickr/CC BY-NC 2.0
Where time stands still
There are places in this world that never stop changing, like Rome — built on the ruins and debris of its previous iterations — or New York, with its ever-rising skyline.
And then there are places where time stands still. Whether frozen in time by natural disaster or simply left behind because no one cared to stay, these spots stand virtually undisturbed, encapsulating a moment of the past.
Credit: Shutterstock
Pompeii
The ancient city of Pompeii was arrested in time in A.D. 79 by Mount Vesuvius. The volcano buried the town and any inhabitants who could not evacuate in a thick layer of volcanic ash. The bodies of the dead decomposed, leaving behind voids in the ash that archaeologists later filled with plaster and excavated, resulting in the eerie death casts that made Pompeii famous. But the volcano preserved other things too, from advanced plumbing facilities to colorful carved frescos and graffiti. Excavations have revealed the nitty-gritty details of life in A.D. 79, including at-home first aid equipment and tiny barbecues that probably cooked quick, casual meals.
Credit: Thomas Hawk/Flickr/CC BY-NC 2.0
Two Guns, Arizona
Among the American West's weirder ghost towns is Two Guns, an abandoned roadside attraction. According to Atlas Obscura, Two Guns was nothing but a few scattered homesteads until the early 1920s, when it became a travel stop on what would morph into the famous Route 66. An eccentric entrepreneur named Harry Miller leased the site, building a mini-zoo and fake Native American ruins. Exploiting the late 19th-century deaths of a group of Apache warriors killed during a battle with the Navajo people, Miller gave tours of the cave where they died and even sold skulls he said were from those Apache. Miller later shot the landowner who leased him the land, but was acquitted. In 1929, after a fire and a legal battle over the land ownership, Miller left. Route 66 soon left too, rerouted across the canyon. Two Guns changed hands a few times before burning down again in 1971. Today, only a few stone buildings and part of the old zoo's mountain lion enclosure remain.
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Salton Riviera, California
When the Salton Sea formed, quite by accident in 1905, people called it a miracle. Thanks to an irrigation accident, water from the Colorado River filled a formerly dry lakebed in southeastern California. The resulting lake, the Salton Sea, became a resort attraction (it's still a state recreation area today).
Within a few decades, though, the disaster of the Salton Sea became apparent. With no outlet, the lake concentrated both salt and agricultural runoff, turning it into a stinking environmental disaster, complete with piles of dead fish along the shore. Most of the buildings near the lake have been abandoned, and local authorities have agreed to let the Salton Sea wither. As of 2018, 40 percent less water is being directed into the Salton Sea than at its inception, according to The Verge, which will gradually lower the lake level by 20 feet (6 meters). As lake turns to dust, more residents may flee, according to The Verge; the air in the Imperial Valley is among the worst in the country.
Hashima Island, Japan
Once the site of a major coal-mining operation and home to more than 5,000 people, Japan's Hashima Island is now heavily built up — but empty. The island is a mere 16 acres (6.3 hectares) in area and is almost entirely covered by the marks of humanity: a seawall, multi-story buildings and an abandoned shrine. The island was abandoned in 1974 after all its coal was depleted. In 2009, it opened to tourism, and, in 2015, it became a UNESCO World Heritage Site. If you can't get there in person, you can tour the island in great detail via Google Earth.
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Pripyat, Ukraine
It was a bit like a modern Pompeii. On April 26, 1986, an explosion at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant caused the release of 5 percent of the reactor's radioactive core. According to the World Nuclear Association, 28 people perished in the following weeks because of acute radiation sickness. In the nearby town of Pripyat, 45,000 people had to leave overnight; ultimately, more than 220,000 people would have to evacuate the contaminated zone around the plant.
The buildings left behind are full of shattered glass and abandoned furniture. An abandoned Ferris wheel sits by a long-unused merry-go-round. Nature has reclaimed the catastrophe zone, with wolves, moose and wild boar roaming where humans used to bustle.
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Kolmanskop, Namiba
The bone-dry Namib Desert is a hard place for life to survive. The town of Kolmanskop didn't manage to.
Founded in the early 1900s after diamonds were discovered in the region, Kolmanskop was built by the Germans who controlled what is now Namibia at the time. The architecture is oddly Teutonic, with arched windows and wrought-iron railings. According to the now-ghost-town's website, residents survived thanks to water trucked in from 75 miles (120 kilometers) away. By the 1920s, the diamond mines were drying up and new deposits were found elsewhere. The town shrank rapidly, and it was finally abandoned for good in 1956.
Credit: Chao-Wei Juan/Flickr/CC BY-NC 2.0
Sanzhi UFO Houses
The Sanzhi UFO Houses were a row of oddly shaped pod-like buildings put up in the late 1970s as a resort on the northern tip of Taiwan. The two-story pod-buildings were never finished, but they were painted a cheery pink and yellow, making them look as though some friendly futuristic extraterrestrial had just dashed down to the store for a cup of sugar and might be back at any minute. These odd ghost buildings wouldn't last forever, though; they were demolished in 2010 to make way for new development.
Credit: Ville Miettinen/Flickr/CC BY-NC 2.0
Deception Island, Antarctica
Can something qualify as a ghost town if it's on a largely uninhabited continent? Deception Island might. This outpost in Antarctica has been a whaling station and the site of several scientific labs, but it's also the caldera of an active volcano. In 1967 and 1969, that volcano erupted, destroying the British and Chilean scientific stations that were active at the time. According to Atlas Obscura, the island is now visited by the occasional seasonal science team and by tourists who enjoy views of the place's deserted airplane hangar and rusting boilers and tanks.
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Craco, Italy
Located in the "instep" of Italy's boot, the village of Craco dates to A.D. 1060 (though monks and earlier settlers lived in this rugged region prior to that time). Throughout the Middle Ages, about 1,500 people lived in Craco at any given time. It had four plazas, multiple churches, and, by the 1800s, it was big enough to be split into two districts, according to the local historical society.
But Italy is a seismically active place, and the slopes where Craco was built are steep and unstable. In the mid-1900s, earthquakes and landslides damaged the town. In 1963, the last residents left, relocated to another village nearby. Today, the abandoned town is a historical site and tourist attraction.
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Oradour-sur-Glane, France
A tragic casualty of World War II, Oradour-sur-Glane was destroyed by the Waffen SS in 1944. It was a horrific atrocity. On June 10 of that year, Nazi forces entered the village and rounded up its citizenry on the pretense of doing identity checks. Instead, they separated the village's men from its women and children and began to massacre them. They killed 642 men, women and children, then set the village on fire. Only a handful of people survived.
After the war, France decided to leave the village as it was in memory of the massacre. A Centre de la Mémoire stands at the sight to guide visitors through the abandoned buildings and execution sites. The village crypt contains artifacts like watches and clocks stopped at the time of the fires.Bodie, California
California's Gold Rush brought an influx of settlers hoping to strike it rich in gold. These settlers built boomtowns almost overnight — and abandoned them just as quickly when the gold veins tapped out.
Bodie, California, is one of those towns. Gold was discovered in the area near Mono Lake in 1875, according to the California Department of Parks and Recreation. The town of Bodie sprung up to house the miners working the vein. Since 1962, the former mine town has been a designated National Historic Site and a state park, left as it was when the last residents moved on.
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Mandu, India
Mandu, in Madhya Pradesh, India, is a preserved town that dates to at least the sixth century A.D. It's known for its lavish architecture, including India's biggest fort and a massive palace constructed in 1508 and named for Baz Bahadur, who ruled Mandu from 1555 to 1562. According to legend, Bahadur fell in love with a singing shepherdess named Roopmati, whom he made his queen. But a Mogul army invaded Mandu, taking the city and kidnapping Roopmati. She is said to have poisoned herself to avoid the attention of the Mogul general.
Today, visitors can see temples, tombs and multiple palaces built in Mandu over the centuries. Perhaps the most famous is the Jahaz Mahal, or Ship Palace, which is built between two artificial lakes so that it seems to float.
Credit: Ian Walton/Getty
Angkor, Cambodia
Another ancient-site-turned-tourist-destination, Angkor Wat is one of the largest temples ever built. It was constructed between about A.D. 1113 and 1150 as a Hindu temple, and was later converted into a Buddhist temple. The city surrounding Angkor Wat, Angkor, may have once been home to a million people.Angkor is no longer a metropolis, but a UNESCO World Heritage site that archaeologists and conservationists are trying to save from encroaching jungle and damage by modern tourists. More than 100,000 people still live in the shadow of the temple, many living an agrarian lifestyle like the generations that came before them.
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Tyneham, England
In 1943, the British government asked residents of Tyneham, England, to make a major sacrifice for the war effort: leave their homes. The villagers had a month's notice, the BBC reported, before the village and its surroundings were taken over as a tank firing range in advance of D-Day, the day in 1944 when Allied forces invaded northern France at Normandy and ultimately liberated France from Nazi occupation.Tyneham residents, all 225 of them, were told they'd get to return to their village after the war, but the government ended up keeping the land for military training. The village has been empty since and is now in ruins. Stone and brick buildings stand quietly, their roofs and windows long-gone. Visitors are allowed in on weekends, and the old church has been reopened. It's used for occasional concerts and special services.
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Humberstone, Chile
In the late 1800s, Chile experienced a rush not on gold, but on salt. Entrepreneurs and miners high-tailed it to the Atacama Desert, which is rich in potassium nitrate, or saltpeter. A major ingredient in agricultural fertilizers, saltpeter made up 80 percent of Chilean exports in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, according to the BBC.One of the mining towns that sprung up in this saltpeter rush was Humberstone, founded in 1872. It was once home to more than 3,000 people, mainly saltpeter diggers and refiners and their families. But during World War I, Allied powers blocked Germany from importing saltpeter, and the Germans developed synthetic fertilizers in response. Saltpeter lost its value. Humberstone became a ghost town. The dry desert air has kept the rot away, and many of the town's buildings stand just as they did a century ago.
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