24 Ghost Towns and Abandoned Cities

24 Tales of Ghost Towns and Abandoned Cities

Written by Urbanist on October 19th, 2008 - Topics: Abandonments, Architecture, Environment, Urbex

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 remain contested and uninhabited as a result - or are simply left as memorials to the terrible events that took place in them. Still others are simply deserted when they outlive their usefulness as trade outposts or mining towns.

This Halloween, forget the plastic cape and cheesy costume. Why not find and explore the real relics and strange structures of an actual ghost town or abandoned city instead? From Azerbaijan to Japan, Italy to Siberia and Cyprus to China, here are twenty-four haunting real-life ghost villages, towns and cities from around the world. Click below to learn more:

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Tore
October 21st, 2008 at 7:21 am

Pyramidene is not in Sweden, is on Svalbard, a island that is a part of Norway.
Christy
October 21st, 2008 at 2:20 pm

Interesting stuff. I lived in Illinois from 1997-2005 and my work took me near Cairo, Illinois, many times. It is beautiful and sad. I don’t know how much of the town will be saved as building supply companies were coming into Cairo and dismantling numerous buildings in downtown. They were after the bricks that make up most of the old business buildings. I wonder if anything will be left?
Lori
October 22nd, 2008 at 10:48 am

Fantastic post. It really gets a rise on my wander-lust meter.
Michael John Grist
October 24th, 2008 at 7:31 am

Amazing, beautiful. what a great site overall, glad I found it- so many links for the urbex-minded!
djin
November 4th, 2008 at 9:54 am

You really haven’t been or heard of México hehe…
NightHawk
November 14th, 2008 at 5:00 pm

I actually live in Japan now and would love to find those two abandoned cities…

Anyone happen to know the GPS coordinates for them??
vacation packages all inclusive
November 21st, 2008 at 4:33 am

Human Being is the biggest threat than gosts because gosts do not harm you as much as human. Man is on the vergre to destroy all the other species on the world
michi
November 21st, 2008 at 4:51 am

Amazing pictures.
Thanks for the post.
blahblahblah
November 21st, 2008 at 8:19 am

“gosts do not harm you as much as human”

^^^ Funniest line on this page by far. For one you couldn’t even spell “ghosts” properly, so something tells me you’re not an expert on the topic. Even if you were, you still wouldn’t be qualified to make any real statements about what ghosts do or not do for one simple reason; they don’t exist.

Sorry to break the bad news with you, but it’s the same as the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, the “Boogeyman,” all of that bullshit that you believed in when you were young? That includes ghosts.
design
December 3rd, 2008 at 6:32 pm

Abandoned cities… they’re not just for the Mayans anymore.
Ask Whiz
January 11th, 2009 at 11:53 pm

Great site for an urnex for me.. Great site overall
Mr.Jade Cadelina
January 12th, 2009 at 2:19 am

Thank you for creating this list.
Do you have links to Google maps for these town and cities?

Here are some ‘lost city’ links to add to your collection:

http://www.hvk.org/articles/0102/137.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/1768109.stm
leppy
February 5th, 2009 at 10:48 pm

you guys are all stupid. ghost are real bad asses because i get into fights with them all the time. they killed my cat man. i hunted it down and kept it in the bottle. i buried the bottle in this special liquid type cement. i invented this by a special substance called quantum Elepa. i named it after a little bit of my name. it has a special DNA screen mixed in with the quantum Elepa which only allows my DNA to enter the complex liquid cement. the quantum Elepa is extremely rare and can only be found in a special place in my back yard but you must add other materiel’s as well. in order for the DNA screen to mix you must add calorific acid and liquid nitrogen. only then can you mix the DNA screen. The DNA screen will only mix into the quantum Elepa, if you try to use anything els the fumes will blind you for several weeks. buy the end of this process stick your hand into the mix and the mix will turn a spectacular clear blue and only your hand can enter. if anyone els tries to put there hand in it will just feel like cement.
Teddi
February 9th, 2009 at 3:46 pm

What is scary is the picture of Cairo you show looks like the town I live in now and the town I grew up in. Both are located in Southwestern Lower Michigan. This could happen anywhere. With many large factories closing the past few years this really could happen and soon!
Tony
February 10th, 2009 at 6:32 am

It’s amazing how in this overpopulated planet there are places like this.

I remember visiting Managua, the capital of Nicaragua, in 1990. The center of the city was destroyed by an earthquake in the 1970’s, and although the city has grown in size enormously since then, nobody has done anything with the center. So to drive through from one side to the other you have to go along broken roads with ruins that are overgrown, or drive around the outside of the city.
Leppy's Mum
February 23rd, 2009 at 7:59 am

Leppy’s such a good boy.
Squattingdawg
March 5th, 2009 at 8:14 am

This is a very interesting site, despite the coments made by the mentally challenged. If you have to insult someone else to make yourself feel like a man, then maybe you should not post at all. The only peson that appears intellectually challenged is the person making the out of place comment.

So go back to your beer, turn off your big sisters computer, This is a really good site, leave it as a good site.
chris nielsen
May 1st, 2009 at 1:32 am

Have a look at this article on Kolmanskop in Namibia. I have been there several times and it fascinates me.
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May 20th, 2009 at 1:52 am

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Bitki Derman
June 6th, 2009 at 7:52 am

The only peson that appears intellectually challenged is the person making the out of place comment.