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15 most amazing ghost towns in the world
Some cities are simply dying. People are leaving and isolation creates a creepy form of a lonely ghost town—decreasing due to neglect and urban decay. Their stories are silent about, while hope for the restoration is dying. Some of these cities have failed due to disasters (natural and human), while others have simply outlived its function. I think we can all agree on one thing – they are all very creepy.
1. Bezid, Romania
The whole city was flooded when the dam collapsed and spilled artificial lake. After the flood, we can only see the bell tower of the church. This is just one of the villages that have disappeared during the regime of Ceausescu.
2. Sanzh District, New Taipei, Taiwan
This area, called Sanzh, was originally resort north of Taipei. The architecture of the city could be called “UFO futuristic style,” although this abandoned resort had problems from the start. During construction, many workers were killed in traffic accidents, and many strange accidents were frequent. Urban legend says that about 20 people were killed.
Their deaths were linked with the supernatural. Some speculate that the resort is built on an old cemetery, and other disasters transcribed bad luck that had befallen them when a dragon statue destroyed during construction. Anyway, the ruins have never received their first guests, and the project was completely abandoned in 1980.
3. Oradour-sur-Glane, Limousin, France
During World War II, Nazi troops came upon Oradour-sur-Glane and completely destroyed the village, killing 642 people. Burned cars and buildings have remained frozen in time as they were in 1944. A monument of the monstrosity of war and a memorial to the villagers who lost their lives.
The massacre was one of the worst moments of humanity. All visitors of the “martyred village” were asked to silently walking through the streets of this tragedy.
4. Centralia, Pennsylvania, United States
The entire city of Centralia was sentenced to failure from the state of Penslivanija and its ZIP code has been canceled. Once leading to Centralia, the road is now blocked. It is as if the city does not exist at all, but it exists, and it burns for almost 50 years. In 1962. a fire erupted in a landfill near the Odd Fellows cemetery. The fire quickly spread through a hole in a coal mine beneath the city, and since then fire do not stop.
Smoke comes out through the cracks in the road, and in the the ground are opened fire holes that emit high temperatures and dangerous fumes into the air. The city has been slowly evacuated over the years, though some residents have chosen to stay, believing that the evacuation was in fact a conspiracy of their government which wants to get their hands on the rights to the coal beneath their homes.
5. Pripyat, Ukraine
On April 26. in 1986. an accident at a nuclear reactor at Chernobyl was happened. The incident was a major blow to the sustainability of the platform of nuclear power, and today, the city of Pripyat is an abandoned shell. Although the nuclear reactor dug in the concrete shell from with the appropriate name of “sarcophagus”, the area around the nuclear power plant remains unsafe for living.
Nature and wildlife took over the whole city for themselves. Wolves silently hunt among residential buildings, and wild boars foraging in an abandoned amusement park – which opened the day after the explosion of a nuclear power plant, it’s the time of evacuation.
6. Hashima Island, Nagasaki, Japan
During the industrial revolution in Japan, Mitsubishi company built this isolated island’s civilization around large coal deposits in the Nagasaki islands. The first concrete skyscraper in Japan was built on the island. At its peak, the island of about 6 acres had about 5,000 residents – workers in the coal mine and their families.
Today, this deserted island consists of dilapidated buildings, empty streets and eerie silence. In 2009, the island is open to tourists, so now you can go to explore an abandoned movie theaters, shops and buildings of this deserted island.
7. Kolmanskop, Namibia
Once successful city next to mine diamonds, Kolmanskop is now a desert ghost town, where houses welcomes only sand. When the Germans found a wealth of minerals in this region, they first constructed the desert city.
They built a city with a classic line of German architecture that has a ballroom, a theater, and the first tram system in Africa. The desert has taken over the town when the miners abandoned him. Sand filled the houses, covered streets, and slowly erased all signs of civilization.
8. Pyramiden, Svalbard, Norway
This mining town has since 1927 been owned by the USSR It was the ideal Soviet workers’ town with a barracks, a sports center and with a bust of Lenin. The city was abandoned in 1998 when the mine was exhausted, but the buildings, including a library full of books, theater and music room with a piano remained as they were then.
9. Belchite, Zaragoza Province, Spain
The Spanish Civil War took place in Belchite. 1937. Spanish Republicans and General Franco forces clashed in the village, when the village was completely destroyed. After 1939 on the ruins of Belco, built a new village that never settled. The ruins of the village serve as a horrible memory of these events.
10. Bodie, California
The city was founded in 1859 by gold miners in the vicinity of the mine. He was the second largest city in California in the 1870s, but soon the population began to plummet and in 1930 it had only 228 inhabitants. Since in 1962. This city is an open air museum with 200 intact buildings.
11. Craco, Basilicata, Italy
Built on a hill, the purpose of the city is primarily was to deny attackers with its position and architecture. Since he was shaken by numerous earthquakes and subsequent erosion, Craco city was abandoned and relocated to a lower location. Today is empty village ideal for research and is home to numerous, interesting, old churches, such as Santa Maria della Stella.
12. Borough, North Cyprus
Once one of the most popular resorts in the world was a favorite place of Brigitte Bardot, Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor who adored him. But after the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974 the whole place is surrounded by a fence.
13. Agdam, Azerbaijan
The city had 150,000 inhabitants, but today it is empty and isolated ghost town. Once successful area was captured by the forces of Nagorno-Karabakh Republic and the entire population fled toward the east. After that, the area destroyed by the Armenians in order to prevent Azerbaijanis to take it back. Today the city is in a terrible state.
14. Kayaköy, Mugla, Turkey
More than a thousand Greek Orthodox lived here until 1923, when after the population exchange, the village remained deserted. It is now a museum with 500 houses and two Orthodox churches.
15. Humberstone and Santa Laura, Atacama Desert, Chile
Home to saltpeter mines, these two company towns in northern Chile were abandoned in in 1958. The well-reserved buildings include a theater with its original chairs, houses, a cast-iron swimming pool made from the hull of a ship, a hotel, and grocers’ shops complete with price lists.
