For those who think that the glory-days of boat-building are over, think again – for there are modern-day Brunels, eager to build the next generation of ocean-faring superstructures. Here are 7 wondrous examples of epic modern ship design, from passenger liner to man o’ war, from staggeringly large to stealthily small – all demonstrating that when it comes to innovation, technology and breadth of ambition, the best designs are the ones making waves.

(Images via: Dark Roasted Blend)

Longer than the Eiffel Tower is tall, the Knock Nevis is a floating colossus with a fascinating history. Originally built in a Japanese shipyard for a Greek owner who couldn’t take delivery, the ship has had multiple owners, endured three name-changes and, while being used as a storage ship by Iran in 1988, been bombed and sunk by Iraqi jets. Today this near-half-kilometer-long behemoth can be seen permanently moored at the Al Shaheen oil fields, Qatar, where (as the Knock Nevis) it is being used as an FPSO.

(Image via: Relevant Search Scotland)

However, the title of Largest Ship In The World belongs to the Batillus-class supertankers of the late 1970s, each weighing in at around half a million tonnes deadweight. Massive they may have been, but all but one of these ships lasted less than a decade – the longest-lived was the Prairial, finally scrapped in Karachi in 2003.

(Image via: Oasis of the Seas)

Fancy sailing the world’s oceans atop a skyscraper? You’ll want to book passage on the Oasis of The Seas , the first in Royal Caribbean International’s new fleet of cruise ships…and the largest passenger vessel in the world.

(Images via: Oasis of the Seas)

Launched from Finland last month, the OotS is currently heading towards Fort Lauderdale on its maiden voyage. 70 meters high, 360 meters long and a whopping 225,000 tons (that is over four times heavier than the Titanic), it offers its passengers an astounding variety of luxuries including two-storey apartments, a mini golf course and an indoor park. Cruise travel gone mad?

(Images via: Crunch Gear via Ecofriend)

Attempting something a little eco-flashier is the Super Eco Ship 2030 (due to hit the seas in…well, have a guess). The ship is powered by hydrogen fuel cells and onboard solar and wind energy collectors – and with the help of a lightened, friction-reduced hull, the designed claim a 69% drop in carbon dioxide emissions compared with today’s container ships.

(Images via: Freedom Ship

Less a ship than a mindbogglingly huge chain of barges, the Freedom Ship is a vessel on a scale that even Roland Emmerich would raise an eyebrow at. It would house over 60,000 passengers (maybe even up to 100,000 at a squeeze) and would contain everything a modern community needs – even its own airport, turboprop-only. Where is it now? Lost in a sea of blueprints, without publicized investors (and at an estimated price of $11 billion this project needs a lot of them) and the target of accusations of scamming. If completed, the Freedom Ship would cruise round the world – and we have to ask, what exactly is it like to ride out a tropical storm in an oversized barge?

(Images via: 800HighTech)

Dear modern sea-pirates: how would you feel if one of these sidled alongside your scurvy vessel and ordered you to drop anchor? Meet the Visby-class stealth corvette, darling of the Swedish Navy.

(Images via: 800HighTech and Gizmodo)

Gizmodo likens them to waterborne Star Destroyers, and we see their point. These warships are designed to sneak under the radar at any distance above 13 miles in calm seas, thanks to advanced materials in its armored cladding and a greatly dampened electromagnetic footprint – and once up close, its guns, missiles, depth charges, torpedoes and grenade launchers would be sure to get the attention of even the most heavily-armed ship of hijackers.

(Image via: US Navy)

But for sea-policing at a disance, the prize goes to US Navy’s upcoming Zumwalt-class destroyer – a $3.3 billion, 21st-Century version of the ironclad. Thanks to stealth technologies its radar signature will be little larger than a fishing boat…

(Images via: US Navy and Wired)

…which would belie the truly formidable punch behind this hunter-killer, including an advanced gun system firing 10 rounds a minute to a range of 80 miles. Guided missiles can also be flung out the well-protected vertical launch tubes – and it has even been suggested that railguns and lasers might make up its future arsenal. For now, its cutting-edge nature means that a number of key technologies have yet to be fully developed. In every sense, this is a ship of the future.

(Images via: Inhabitat)

And last but not least, we have a ship that isn’t a ship at all – it’s a floating exhibition centre. This design, created for the 2012 World Expo in South Korea, is a pavilion with a difference…

(Images via: Inhabitat)

…because once the show is over, it can be detached from the shoreline and sailed elsewhere, drawn behind a tug. It may not be self-powered, but a ship it most definitely is – and one that would be towed around the South Korean coastline to wherever it is needed. The possibilities are intriguing: how about a theater where the venue goes on tour with the company? And is this the start of shipping that has a dual role, embedded in the seaward sides of our cities to perform an entirely different service to the community?

7 Wonders of the Modern Engineering

From Venice to Boston, Egypt to England, here are seven amazing engineering wonders of the modern world. Click Here to See More

It sounds like a horrible nightmare: human bones stacked in patterns on the floor, their skulls lining the walls and staring, gaping-eyed, at visitors. It’s no nightmare, though: in churches, cathedrals and underground chambers all over the world, the bones of millions of dead greet visitors. The grisly rooms, known as ossuaries, serve as the final resting place for human remains, often due to overcrowded cemeteries. They exist for different reasons, but they all hold a sort of macabre fascination for us, the living. These seven stunning examples of ossuaries remind us that life is fleeting, but some part of us can live on in this world.

1. Sedlec Ossuary, Czech Republic

Easily one of the most incredible collections of human bones in the world, the Sedlec Ossuary in the Czech Republic is unlike anything else. The small church rests at the outskirts of Kutna Hora and is filled with the mortal remains of more than 40,000 people. The origins of the “Bone Church,” as it’s commonly known, are nearly as interesting as the array of bones. In 1278, an abbot named Henry made a pilgrimage to Jesus’ burial place and brought back a small amount of earth. He sprinkled the dirt over the Sedlec cemetery, making it holy ground. Suddenly, it was the most popular place to be buried. When the cemetery ran out of room, the previously buried bodies were dug up, starting in 1511, to make room for the more recently dead.

It wasn’t until 1870 that the excavated bones were put to use. That’s when a local woodcarver, František Rint, was employed to arrange the huge quantity of bones in an attractive way. Rint proved to be a true artist, creating the most amazing bone art the world has ever seen. A coat of arms on the wall depicts a raven pecking at a skull, the breathtaking bone chandelier uses every bone in the human body at least once, and the walls and ceiling are adorned with jaunty strings of bones and skulls. The chapel is a Christian church, not a cult or Satanic ritual space as is often rumored. The bones on display were simply removed from the ground to allow more Christians to be buried on holy ground. The resulting ossuary is maybe the most beautiful one on Earth.

2. Santa Maria della Concezione, Rome, Italy

Santa Maria della Concezione is a wonderful example of the fact that not everyone sees death as something to be feared. The church features the remains of more than 4,000 Capuchin friars arranged in artistic displays. Some bodies are complete and dressed in Capuchin robes, but most have been disassembled and are displayed individually as bones in artful designs. A plaque in the chapel tells visitors in three languages “What you are now, we once were; what we are now, you shall be.” It is a reminder that life is fleeting and that any one of us could be gone tomorrow. Rather than being gruesome or horrific, the reminder is gentle and positive, reminding us to take care of our affairs today and be right with the higher power at all times.

3. Brno Ossuary, Brno, Czech Republic

The Brno Ossuary has been quietly existing under St. Jacob’s Square for hundreds of years, mostly forgotten. When a new construction project was set to begin in the area in 2001, a routine exploratory archaeological dig was performed. What it turned up was beyond anyone’s imagination. The remains of approximately 50,000 people were found stuffed into the subterranean channel. The bodies were likely dug up from cemeteries to make room for more burials. They were, at one time, stacked neatly, but centuries of neglect and flooding saw them washed into a big messy pile. The city began restorations on the site and plan to open it to the public in 2010 or 2011; it will be Europe’s second-biggest ossuary. And although it’s filled with dead bodies, the ossuary won’t be a place to get lost in morbidity or sadness; rather, it will be an ideal place to meditate on the relationship between life and death.

4. Capela dos Ossos, Evora, Portugal

The Capela dos Ossos, or Chapel of Bones, sits next to the Church of St. Francis and is a major tourist attraction in Evora. Like the above ossuaries, the goal of this particular mass crypt isn’t to scare or disgust; it’s to inspire visitors to contemplate the transitory nature of life. The Capela dos Ossos was created in the 16th century to handle overflow from local cemeteries and to communicate the inevitability of death. One of the more noticeable features of the chapel is the two dessicated bodies – a man and a young child – hanging by chains from the wall. Their identities are unknown, but local legend says that they are a father and son who treated the mother of the family badly and were cursed.

5. Chapel of Skulls, Czermna, Poland

The story of the Chapel of Skulls (or Kaplica Czazek) is almost more interesting than the actual display of human remains in this Polish church. Between the years of 1776 and 1804, a Czech priest and a local gravedigger spent many long hours exhuming bodies from the numerous mass graves in the Czermna area. They set aside the more interesting skulls (those will bullet holes or obvious maladies, or those of politicians) and took the rest to the chapel. Overall, they dug up somewhere in the neighborhood of 24,000 skeletons. Most of them are stuffed into the 16-foot underground crypt, but the bones of approximately 3000 people adorn the chapel in what the Czech priest liked to call a “sanctuary of silence.”

6. Paris Catacombs

The bone-lined catacombs under Paris are arguably the most famous – and undoubtedly the largest – underground ossuary in the world. From the 18th century, poor burial procedures and hopeless overcrowding in Parisian cemeteries were causing widespread disease among inhabitants. It was decided that the dead would be buried in a the large system of tunnels (actually depleted quarries) beneath the city, and the long process of moving them all began. While the bones were originally just piled up and labeled, French officials eventually realized that the catacombs could become a major tourist attraction. The bones were tidied and arranged in neat displays, with stacks of tibiae and skulls forming lovely – if macabre walls. Sadly, a vandalism incident in September 2009 caused Paris officials to close the catacombs to tourists for an undisclosed period of time.

7. Skull Tower of Niš, Serbia

The Skull Tower in Serbia is the only bone collection on this list that is actually meant to inspire terror in those who see it. However, the terror incited by the tower was meant for a long-ago enemy. In 1809, the Serbian rebel army suffered a significant setback in their quest for freedom from the Ottoman Empire. The commander of the Turkish army ordered the heads of the fallen Serbs to be cut off and mounted on a tower to warn anyone who might try to fight against the Empire. A total of 952 were once a part of the Skull Tower, but over the years deterioration and family members have claimed most of the skulls. Only 58 remain today, and a chapel was built to protect the tower. It stands today as a monument to the brave Serbs who fought for their independence.

7 Wonders of the Modern Engineering

From Venice to Boston, Egypt to England, here are seven amazing engineering wonders of the modern world. Click Here to See More

These epic wonders show off the phenomenal beauty of the natural world, awesome abilities of animals,  dangerous capacities of the planet and even the amazing environmental designs of our ancient ancestors. Forget your standard sets of wonders: with hundreds of images and links and pages of information, this cunning WebEcoist collection may be the sensational, educational and inspirational eco-series you have ever read. Divided into 10 parts, each featuring 7 themed subjects, here are 70 incredible wonders of the natural world.

7 Phenomenal Wonders of the Natural World

Vast canyons, giant mountains – those are old natural wonders. Many of the most fantastic natural phenomena are far more impressive but correspondingly difficult to capture. Some are incredibly rare while others are located in hard-to-reach parts of the planet. From moving rocks to mammatus clouds and red tides to fire rainbows, here are seven of the most spectacular phenomenal wonders of the natural world. Click Here to Continue.

7 (More!) Phenomenal Wonders of the Natural World

Sailing stones, fire rainbows, red tides and blue holes … were just the beginning.Imagine sidestepping a house-sized hole in the ground as it forms around you in seconds, walking through a field of razor-sharp ice spikes taller than yourself or fleeing from a deadly vortex of smoke and flame far more dangerous than the raging fire that spawned it. From light pillars and sun dogs to firewhirls and sinkholes, here are seven more beautiful, terrifying and awe-inspiring natural wonders of the world. Click Here to Continue.

7 Phenomenal Wonders of the Animal World

Fantastic phenomena are, however, far from all mother nature has to offer – some of her most impressive creations reside in the animal kingdom. Though they may seem too strange to be real, all but a few of these have been extensively documented in photos and videos – and those that haven’t are supported by dazzling eyewitness accounts from around the globe. From raining and exploding animals to amazing animal architects, here are seven sensational wonders of the animal world. Click Here to Continue.

7 Symbiotic Wonders of the World’s  Seven Seas

Evolution alone is an amazing thing – but species that evolve together can be all the more spectacular, protecting, feeding and cleaning one another in incredible ways. Sharks pair with fish, fish with shrimp and shrimp with sea cucumbers and much much more. From boxing crabs that wield poisonous anemones as weapons to shrimp that scour the mouths of electric eels, here are seven of the most radical symbiotic relationships from the shallowest to the deepest waters of our world. Click Here to Continue.

7 Soaring Symbiotic Wonders of the World’s Skies

There are many unlikely animal pairings in the world, but some of the most uncanny ones involve birds. Wait, what? Those flighty animals the flit about and flee at the slightest sign of trouble? Precisely those. They have been known to climb in and clean the teeth of a crocodile, lounge on the backs of buffalo, moose, hippos, elephants and zebras and even to share a residence with ants – their natural prey. The first set of symbiotic wonders focused mainly on underwater matches – this set focuses on fliers of the friendly skies. Click Here to Continue.

7 Color-Changing Wonders of the Animal World

Can you spot the creatures the images above? The lizard blends so perfectly it is hard to see even when pointed out. The ability to change color seems like a superpower at times – some amazing animals can alter their appearance to blend with the colors, materials and textures of virtually any surroundings. For some this ‘costume change’ happens quickly, for others it is seasonal – for many it helps them avoid predators, for a few it enables them to sneak up on prey. Culled from around the animal kingdom, here are seven of most impressive color-changing species in the world. Click Here to Continue.

7 Deep-Sea Wonders of the Animal World

Earth’s ocean depths often referred to as the planet’s last great unexplored frontier. Blacker than the darkest night, crushed by unimaginable pressure and for the most part untouched by the hand of man, the world below the water’s surface is bursting with life – though in many cases not life as we know it. Here are seven exceptional examples of weird wonders lurking beneath the waves. Click Here to Continue.

7 Geological Wonders of the World’s 7 Continents

Will wonders never cease? Probably not, Mother Earth has had 5 billion years to sculpt herself into spectacular splendor and it’s certain she’s not done yet. For now though, let’s take a little trip across the seven continents to find our planet’s coolest natural wonders you have likely never seen. Click Here to Continue.

7 Architectural Wonders of the Animal Kingdom

So you thought the ancient and modern wonders created by mankind and creative contemporary architecture were something? From underground ant colonies that extend farther than the Great Wall of China to termite mounds that tower at nearly twice the relative height of the Burj Dubai (tallest skyscraper in the world), and from the largest multi-species spider web ever discovered to the longest beaver dam on the planet, here are seven of the most awe-inspiring animal architects and architectonic structures of the animal kingdom. Click Here to Continue.

7 Green Wonders of the Ancient World

While mother nature herself has much to offer and going green is the latest trend, there have been amazing sustainable designs since the dawn of written history and beyond. We have come a long way since humans first used biomass fuels for their fires over 800,000 years ago. Green design, sustainable innovation, alternative energy – these are all recently-coined buzz-phrases for concepts that in some cases date back tens of thousands of years. The ancient Chinese used concentrated solar power for heat energy and fire, Native Americans used hot springs as renewable geothermal sources for cooking and healing, and some speculate the Egyptians used wind power to help build their pyramids. From Greece and Rome to Persia and North America, here are seven incredibly innovative uses of geothermal, water, wind and solar power from around the ancient world. Click Here to Continue.

Bonus: 82 Epic Elemental Phenomena & Natural Disasters

So you thought this last piece would be a final set of seven to round off the list to 77? As a small surprise, here is an entire additional set that shows the eccentricities and capacities of our planet – also courtesy of WebEcoist, the great green sister site to WebUrbanist (subscribe now!). These amazing natural wonders and epic elemental disasters of the world showcase both the most beautiful and most terrifying sides of Mother Nature. With hundreds of images and over one hundred paragraphs of link-packed information you will not find a more definitive collection anywhere online. Sectioned according to the four classic elements of earth, water, fire and air, here are 52 elemental phenomena and formations and 30 environmental disasters – and to round it off: 100 beautiful HDR photographs of the natural world. Click Here to Continue.

7 Wonders of the Modern Engineering

From Venice to Boston, Egypt to England, here are seven amazing engineering wonders of the modern world. Click Here to See More

Dubai’s World Islands

(images via: Homes Dubai and Ursi Paltenstein)

Following on the successful completion of other offshore artificial island communities like the Palm Islands, Dubai’s World Islands was intended to be even more ambitious, not to mention larger. Imagine owning a private island in the shape of a country or continent, surrounded by the warm waters of the Persian Gulf – and your equally “worldly” neighbors?

(images via: ESA and Amazing Dubai Islands)

While Dubai’s vision of a 300-island floating world may someday come to fruition, things aren’t so rosy at the moment thanks to the ongoing world economic crisis. As of late summer 2009 only a single island has been developed and it belongs to Dubai’s ruling Sheik; “the rest looks like a pile of muck” according to a local realtor. With property prices crashing by 50 to 75 percent, many of Dubai’s spectacular construction projects have been put on indefinite hold if not canceled outright.

Bering Strait Bridge

(images via: Mr. James and William Bacon)

A bridge across the Bering Strait connecting Russia and Alaska? No, this is not a repeat from 11,000BC. OFF Architecture won the 2nd Prize in the Professional Category at the 2009 Bering Strait Project competition (yes, there is such a thing) with their grandiose and green bridge-tunnel combo. The design would greatly reduce circulation between the Arctic and North Pacific Oceans, thus cooling the former and mitigating the effects of global warming. Or so they say.

(image via: Inhabitat)

The 53-mile wide Bering Strait is surprisingly shallow – it was a natural land bridge back in Ice Age times – so OFF Architecture’s design would reach from just above the water’s surface down to the ocean floor 100 to 150 feet below. Such a design would necessitate circular “pass throughs” for migrating marine mammals and whales. The thought of a whale having a panic attack inside one of the tunnels gives a whole new meaning to “Thar she blows!!”

Large Hadron Collider

(images via: BBC, Discover Magazine and Device Daily)

The Large Hadron Collider, or LHC being built by CERN is without question the largest and most complex machine ever constructed by Man. It has to be – the universe doesn’t give up its deepest secrets very easily. The LHC is the world’s largest refrigerator, requiring 10,080 tons of liquid nitrogen and nearly 60 tons of liquid helium to bring the temperature of the collider’s huge electromagnets down to -271.3°C (1.9 Kelvin). Want more? The interior of the LHC’s ring tunnel is the emptiest place in the entire solar system – the machine’s particle beams will travel through an ultra-high vacuum with ten times less pressure than you’ll find on the Moon.

(images via: Sun HPC)

Huge as it is, the LHC doesn’t look too impressive from the air since the actual 17-mile (27 km) tunnel lies buried an average 330 feet (100 meters) underground. It IS big however – part of the ring is in France; part is in Switzerland. Since this short blurb gives only a hint of the LHC’s workings, check out this Schoolhouse Rock style rap on the LHC from TeacherTube:

LHC Rap, via TeacherTube

Gotthard Base Tunnel

(images via: WTC 2013 and Popular Science)

The 95.3-mile (153.5 km) long Gotthard Base Tunnel network now being drilled out beneath the Alps, when finally completed in about ten years, will be the longest underground tunnel ever constructed. High-speed trains traveling at 155 mph (250 kph) will significantly reduce travel times between Zurich, Switzerland and Milan, Italy while at the same time relieving the bottleneck of commercial and passenger traffic now clogging existing mountain highways and train lines. Hannibal would most definitely approve.

(image via: Railway Technology)

The most difficult portion of the tunnel is the 57 km (35.4 mi) stretch that will run nearly 2,000 feet (600 meters) under the Gotthard massif below the existing Gotthardbahn track. It’s estimated that 459 million cubic feet (13 million cubic meters) of crumbly, porous rock will have to be removed during the course of tunnel construction – that’s enough to fill the Great Pyramid of Giza five times over. In the above image, one of the huge tunnel-boring machines is shown just as it breaks through to one of the completed sections of the tunnel.

Japan-Korea Undersea Tunnel

(images via: InventorSpot)

Though the shovels have yet to shift any dirt, the blueprints are ready for construction to begin on one of Asia’s most momentous megaprojects: the Japan-Korea Friendship Tunnel. Or the Korea-Japan Friendship Tunnel – the fine details are still being discussed. Should the project get the nod from the politicos, work will begin on joining the southwestern Japanese city of Karatsu with the South Korean port of Busan with a 79-mile (128-km) train tunnel. The distance is more than three times that of the Anglo-French “Chunnel” but the technology is proven. As for North Korea’s take on the project, either Kim Jong Il hasn’t been told or everyone’s scared to bring up the subject.

The wags at Asiadog have put together a nifty video of what they refer to as the Korea < -> Japan Undersea Tunnel, backed by a bouncy beat:

Korea <-> Japan Undersea Tunnel, via Asiadog

Space Solar Power Station

(images via: Inhabitat, Treehugger and Pink Tentacle)

The challenges and difficulties involved in large-scale orbital construction projects are immense… yet someday they will be tackled as the demand for interplanetary spacecraft, space elevators and orbiting power stations becomes irresistible. The latter – a solar power station in geostationary orbit – is now on the drawing board and has been given a sky-high price tag of 2 trillion yen ($21 billion).

(image via: Bloomberg)

The project, conceived by the Japanese government and industry researchers, will see a space-based solar power station built in orbit 22,360 miles (36,000 km) above the earth. The station will generate 1 gigawatt of power from sunlight and beam the energy down to a receiving station where it can be used to power almost 300,000 homes.

Terraforming Mars

(images via: All These Worlds, Daily Galaxy and Electro-plankton)

The most extreme engineering project in the history of the world will be performed OFF the world… on Mars. A variety of schemes have been floated over the past few decades with the intent of making Earth’s nearest neighbor more amenable to life of the earthly variety – in other words, Terraforming. Naturally the scale is huge – comets may be redirected to impact the Red Planet to provide water for oceans, which would be seeded with algae in order to boost the oxygen content in the Martian atmosphere. Other schemes entail the placement of giant orbiting mirrors to focus sunlight upon Mars’ polar icecaps, thus releasing liquid water and gaseous carbon dioxide to kick-start a greenhouse effect.

(images via: LA 2101 and WonderlandJACK)

Terraforming Mars is no pie-in-the-sky scheme; it could be the salvation of our species should our actions on Earth continue to reduce our home planet’s livability. It would be most fitting if someday, as predicted/depicted in The Million-Year Picnic, a short story from Ray Bradbury’s book The Martian Chronicles, this scene should take place: A father answers his children’s desire to see Martians by suggesting they look into the canal their boat is floating on… in which they view their own reflections.

More Underground, Underwater and Other Wonders of the World
7 Engineering Wonders of the World (Part 1!)
7 Underground Wonders of the World
7 (More!) Underground Wonders of the World
7 Underwater Wonders of the World
7 Island Wonders of the World
7 Urban Wonders of the World
7 Wonders of Modern Green Design and Technology

Amazing Abandoned Wonders: Buildings, Towns & Cities

7 Abandoned Wonders of America
7 (More!) Abandoned Wonders of America
7 (Even More!) Abandoned Wonders of America
7 Abandoned Wonders of the Former Soviet Union
7 (More!) Abandoned Wonders of the Former Soviet Union
7 Abandoned Wonders of the European Union

The Making of 5 Modern Engineering Marvels

Each of the five projects listed here took their toll financially and were paid for in part with human lives. Click Here to See More

With some abandoned places in truly far-flung locations, the mystery is less about why they were abandoned – it is how there were people there in the first place. Take these seven wondrous examples of human stubbornness in the face of extreme environmental conditions, from one temperature extreme to another – and marvel at our ability to leave our mark in the remotest corners of the world, for good or ill.

1. St. Kilda, Scotland

(Image via: Glasgow University Archaeological Research Division)

Forty miles into the Atlantic Ocean, the archipelago of St. Kilda is the western tip of the the Scottish Outer Hebrides – and the most windswept, storm-tossed part of Britain with waves up to 5 meters high and recorded windspeeds as high as 130 mph.

(Images via: Daily Mail and Guideliner)

Its terrain is monstrously rugged (containing the sheerest drop to sea level in the whole of the UK). The climate is unsympathetic. In short, anyone would be mad to want to live there.

(Images via: National Trust for Scotland)

Tell that to its previous inhabitants. Not only are there traces of various prehistoric communities, they also appear to have endured, culminating in continuous human settlement for 2,000 years – ending in 1930 when a combination of factors including accidental pollution of the land, crop failure and an unsustainably low population drove the remaining St. Kildans off the inhabited main island (Hirta) and back to mainland Scotland. The archipelago has been uninhabited ever since.

(Images via: CaptainOates and Wikimedia Commons)

While there is no permanent population, St. Kilda still enjoys a wealth of scientific and cultural attention. In 1986 the islands became Scotland’s first UNESCO World Heritage Site, and is now administered by the National Trust for Scotland, Scottish Natural Heritage and the Ministry of Defense. In addition to the rangers, archaeologists and conservationist visiting and working on the islands, a number of cruise ships and charter boats bring tourists (and their charitable donations) in ever-increasing quantities. Some of the more substantial ruins are being rebuilt to provide tourist attractions – not to mention shelters, when the weather sweeps in.

2. Ballarat, California

(Image via: Wikimedia Commons)

Three and a half miles off California 178 and a short, dusty drive from Death Valley, Ballarat is a town on the verge of abandonment – and of disappearing altogether.

(Images via: Harry Helms)

Named after the Australian town where the largest gold nugget in history was discovered (a whopping 143 pounds), Ballarat attracted enough gold miners to swell its population to 500 souls in the first years of the 20th Century. It was a relaxation station and a watering-hole (all supplies shipped in from afar) for all those seeking their fortunes in the area, particularly at the Ratcliff Mine just to the east of town. When the mine closed, the town began to die – and today, the sun-baked ruins of the town contain just two permanent residents.

3. Dallol, Ethiopia

(Image via: Volcano Discovery via Artificial Owl)

Fancy living and working somewhere with an average yearly temperature of 34°C (94°F), where summer days never drop below a toasty 40°C? Then you may understand why Dallol in a remote corner of northern Ethiopia’s Afar Depression is an uninhabited, uninhabitable ghost town.

(Image via: Volcano Discovery and Photovolcanica via Artificial Owl)

Even getting there is a tall order – it is extraordinarily remote with no connecting roads. It owes its existence to the local production of potash, enabled in 1918 by the construction of a railway terminal 28km away to shuttle raw materials to Mersa Fatuma. After its short-lived heyday, the settlement fell into decline when demand for potassium salts was met by overseas markets – and when the British dismantled the railway after the Second World War, Dallol’s fate was sealed.

(Image via: Photovolcanica via Artificial Owl)

Today, the settlement is little more than a series of shattered, crumbling walls of salt-block bricking, littered with rusting vehicles and pieces of mining machinery – and apart from the occasional intrepid visitor, it is out of human influence, out of sight and out of mind.

4. Múli, Faroe

(Image via: FaroeIslands)

Don’t let the intact townhouses fool you – because Múli (population 4) is heading for the history books.

(Images via: FaroeIslands)

Lying on the bleak northern tip of the Faroese island of Borðoy, Múli has stubbornly clung to existence since the 13th Century, despite lacking a good road and basic utilities (it only acquired an electricity supply in 1970). The road came, but the people left – and while the summer months see a few previous inhabitants returning for a nostalgic vacation, the town is now considered derelict.

5. Cook, South Australia

(Image via: Rudolph Veldsman)

If you are lucky to find yourself travelling the 4,352 km of the Indian Pacific railroad in South Australia, be sure to look out for the town of Cook. Don’t blink – you might miss it.

(Image via: Bigted27 via TripAdvisor)

Midway along the longest stretch of straight railway in the world (478 km) and the Indian Pacific’s only scheduled stop across the Nullarbor Plain section of its route, Cook is tiny and remote, offering little more than occasional overnight accommodation and shopping supplies for train passengers. All supplies, including fresh water, arrive by train – but that isn’t a problem as there are only 4 residents, officially making Cook a ghost town.

6. South Georgia, South Atlantic

(Image via: Wikimedia Commons)

If you thought there was nowhere habitable in the Southern Atlantic beyond the Falkland Islands…well, you are almost right. The British-owned isle of South Georgia may cover a thousand square miles, but every one of them is cold, windy and prone to sleet and snow whatever the time of year. Not somewhere to linger.

(Image via: Expeditions.com and Wikimedia Commons)

During the 19th Century, South Georgia was the home to a number of sealing and whaling communities containing factory ships, land stations and repair yards. In 1916, it was to South Georgia that Shackleton sailed in an open lifeboat from Elephant Island, 800 miles to the south – a staggering feat of not just endurance but also navigation, as Shackleton’s crew was only able to take four nautical sightings during the entire 17-day voyage.

(Image via: Wofratz via Dark Roasted Blend)

The longest-running station operated out of South Georgia’s best harbor at Grytviken – established in 1904, it even housed a permanent population until its closure in December 1966. Shackleton used the town to launch his rescue of the members of his crew he’d left behind on Elephant Island – and it was here that he was buried in 1922. His grave still attracts tourists from the cruise ships heading towards Antarctica, and the town’s church is still used to conduct remembrance services.

(Image via: Antarctic Diary and Richard Harrington)

Grytviken is South Georgia in miniature: once thriving with marine industry, now rusting and derelict but enjoying significant through-traffic of tourists, scientists, fishing boats and a British military presence. The latter was ousted on April 3rd 1982 when Argentinian forces attacked and occupied Grytviken. On April 25th, the British returned, bombarded the neighboring hillside with naval artillery to signal their intent, and unleashed a small group of Special Forces and Royal Marines on the town. After 15 minutes, the Argentinians surrendered.

(Image via: Dark Roasted Blend)

The enduring Argentinian claim on South Georgia led to a heightened military presence in the years after the Falklands War, finally scaling back and handing over their base at King Edward Point over to the British Antarctic Survey, who now staff the base for much of the year – the closest that South Georgia now has to a resident population.

7. Northern Siberia

(Image via: Adventure Travel)

There are few words that evoke such strong memories – and stronger opinions – as Gulag. The name of a branch of the Soviet State Security, it has instead become better associated with its detention and forced labor camps positioned along the fringes of the Soviet Union, some of them in arctic or subarctic environments.

(Images via: kiddofspeed)

Of the many hundreds of camps operating during Stalinist Russia, many still remain as ruined memorials to the 18 million people who passed through them – and the estimated million who died there, victims of cold, hunger and inhumanly hard labor.

(Image via: kiddofspeed)

Most of the camps were positioned in the remotest parts of northeastern Siberia and southeastern Khazakstan, in places of sparse population and few connections. The more remote the location, the less that security was a problem, as the severity of the environment worked as a better deterrent than any fence or guard-tower.

(Image via: Wikimedia Commons)

This final instance of remote abandonment is unique from the preceding examples – because it is abandonment without regret. It is unlikely that anyone will look nostalgically back to the days when Soviet gulag camps were operating. The inhabitants certainly didn’t choose to be there, and gained little or nothing from the experience. For those reasons, these were places where people lived and died – but probably never regarded as home.

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