An ancient city made of intricately carved stone sits silent at the bottom of a lake, a replica of Paris complete with an Eiffel Tower is eerily empty, and a city leveled by disaster has been cordoned off indefinitely as a memorial to those who were lost. China might just be home to more ghost cities than any other nation on earth, and most of them are of the modern variety, as the push for economic progress has led developers to get a bit ahead of themselves constructing vast communities, malls and amusement parks that never caught on with the public.

China’s Atlantis: Lost Underwater City

Roughly one hundred feet below the surface of Thousand Island Lake (Qiandao Lake) is one of the world’s most stunning submerged historical treasures: Lion City. This ancient city was built during the Eastern Han Dynasty (25-200 CE) and measures about 62 football fields. The city, which is complete with incredibly intricate relief sculptures all over the stone walls of its buildings, was intentionally flooded in the 1950s to create a dam. Evidently, authorities felt that attempting to preserve the city wasn’t worth the trouble. But now that it’s underwater, it has become a diving destination, and various tours have popped up allowing visitors to explore it. Some have even proposed building transparent floating tunnels and other new construction that could make it more accessible to everyone.

Paris of the East: Replica Ghost City

Paris is one of the world’s most vibrant cities, bustling with hundreds of thousands of people. At least, the one in France is. The meticulously built replica city in China – not so much. Tianducheng, in China’s Zhejiang district, was modeled after the real Paris, complete with a 354-foot replica of the Eiffel Tower as well as other landmarks. Intended to be a luxurious gated community that could house 100,000 and draw rural families into a centralized urban location, the city has been a ghost town since its construction in 2007. Only about 2,000 people moved there, and that small number seems to be dwindling by the day. But work is still in progress, and officials are hoping to get more people there before the whole complex is totally complete in 2015.

Ordos: A Modern Ghost Town

It seems as if the entire population of a large city simply vanished into thin air. In reality, they were never here in the first place. The Kangbashi New Area of Ordos is a planned community for one million people, envisioned as the Dubai of Northern China – but only about 20,000 people live there, and you’d never even guess there are that many residents based on the eerie photos of deserted streets and empty skyscrapers. It’s close to abundant natural resources and has plenty of public infrastructure, and economic woes aren’t actually a problem. The government just can’t seem to convince people to move here. Some of the architecture, like the Ordos Art Museum, is really quite stunning, and it’s strange to see it accumulating dust as it waits for visitors that might never come. City officials are still hoping that many of the 1.5 million residents of the old section of Ordos, located 15 miles away, will decide to make the move.

Beichuan: Left Behind After a Disaster

Imagine an entire city leveled by an earthquake, roped off and left to rot as a sad and rather dangerous tribute to all that was lost. It happened in Christchurch, New Zealand (sort of – they do plan to rebuild, and the process has already begun) and it happened in Beichuan, China. A deadly earthquake killed thousands of residents and displaced tens of thousands more, and the damage is so extensive that reconstructing it would require leveling almost all of the remaining buildings. So, it’s now basically a memorial park that you shouldn’t enter unless you’re keen to get trapped in the rubble and join the other victims.

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Ghost Cities Of China 7 Eerie Abandoned Wonders

Sometimes, the setting of a film is almost more important than the plot itself, and that’s particularly true with abandoned places. Crumbling ruins of hospitals, prisons, houses, schools and other facilities seem to host echoes of past residents and events, often radiating a sense of trauma and loss. Of course, the catch – at least, in fiction and fantasy – is that these places aren’t really abandoned after all. Here are 10 (more!) abandonments, real and invented, that feature prominently in scary movies and television shows.

Abandoned Sanitorium – Death Tunnel

Death Tunnel may not be the greatest horror film ever made, but it’s the setting that’s the real star of the show. This 2005 movie about five college women locked into a Kentucky hospital where 63,000 people died from a disease known as the ‘white plague’ was filmed at the real life Waverly Hills Sanitorium in Louisville. And that part about thousands of people dying there? It’s actually true. Treated with little more than fresh air and sunlight in an era before antibiotics, the tuberculosis patients admitted to the hospital invariably ended up in the 500-foot tunnel located beneath the hospital, called a ‘body chute.’ The dead were secretly lowered into the tunnel and loaded on a train so that the remaining patients wouldn’t give up hope that they’d get out alive.

Built in 1910, Waverly Hills closed in 1961 after the advent of advanced medical care drastically reduced the number of patients coming in. Plans are underway to turn it into a hotel that will play up its ‘haunted’ history.

Abandoned Town – Silent Hill

‘Silent Hill’ is based on a real place. This seemingly fictional setting of a series of video games and a movie is based on Centralia, a borough of Pennsylvania that has been abandoned as a result of a mine fire that has burned underground since 1962. Prior to the 1980s, it had about 1,000 residents; there are just a handful left today despite the town being condemned. The blaze beneath Centralia has opened steam pits, sink holes and carbon monoxide vents. The fictional Silent Hill is located in West Virginia, and the reasons for its abandonment are far more frightening.

Abandoned House: The Abandoned

In the 2006 film The Abandoned, an adopted American film producer returns to her hometown in Russia after receiving a phone call from a notary public that she had inherited her family’s abandoned farm. When Marie arrives at the house to learn more about the family she never knew, a man tells her he received the same phone call, and that they’re twins. But once inside, the pair find that the dead residents of the house don’t really want them to leave.

Hidden Subway Tunnel Under London – Raw Meat

Released overseas as ‘Death Line’, Raw Meat is a 1973 movie set in an abandoned subway tunnel under London. Inspired by the many real-life abandoned tube stations of the area, Raw Meat envisions these creepy, darkened subterranean settings filled with a family of cannibals descended from Victorian railway workers.

Abandoned City – New York in I Am Legend

The idea of a once-bustling metropolis utterly abandoned (by humans, anyway) serves as fodder for all sorts of fiction, from books to films. The 2008 adaptation of ‘I Am Legend’ starring Will Smith is just one of many giving us a glimpse of what New York City might look like if it were allowed to fall into ruin, taken back over by the forces of nature. Smith stars as a lone survivor of an epidemic that has turned most of the population into bloodthirsty mutants.

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Abandoned On Film 15 Terrifying Desolate Movie Settings

Sucked into the sea by earthquakes or intentionally flooded to create dams, ancient and contemporary cities lurk just beneath the surface in bodies of water all over the world. Some, like Alexandria in Egypt, represent some of the most significant archaeological findings in recent history; others are more mysterious in origin. The eerie remains of these 7 submerged cities will reveal their secrets only to those who can swim through their underwater streets in scuba suits.

Cleopatra’s Alexandria, Egypt

(images via: smithsonian, archdaily)

The Alexandria of ancient Egyptian ruler Cleopatra was lost for 1,600 years, with tales of its existence seeming like no more than legends. But a team of marine archaeologists stumbled across the ruins off the shores of the modern-day Alexandria in 1998, unearthing vast monuments still standing after all this time. The city was likely taken by the sea as a result of earthquakes. Historians have found columns, sphinxes, statues, temples and the foundations of a palace that likely belonged to Cleopatra herself.

Alexandria is considered one of the richest archaeological sites in the world. In addition to these vast stone monuments, coins and everyday objects have been discovered, painting a picture of a city described more than 2,000 years ago by Greek geographers and historians. Recent dives have unearthed some of the major scenes from the lives of Cleopatra and Marc Antony as well as statues of the queen’s son and father.

Pavlopetri, Greece

(images via: university of nottingham)

Believed to have been submerged off the coast of Greece by a series of earthquakes around 1,000 BCE, Pavlopetri is the oldest-known underwater archaeological town site in the world. Unlike other underwater ruins, which are incomplete or difficult to verify as actual man-made structures, Pavlopetri has a complete town plan, including streets, architecture and tombs. It consists of about 15 structures, submerged about 10-13 feet underwater.

Discovered in 1967, the site has been routinely explored by the University of Cambridge and the University of Nottingham, the latter of which has an ongoing excavation project to find and date artifacts found on the ocean floor.

Port Royal, Jamaica

(images via: wikimedia commons, nautilarch.org)

Tranquil tropical seas have silenced what was once “the most wicked and sinful city in the world,” according to those who traveled there during its heyday as pirates’ favorite party city. Port Royal, Jamaica was famous for its booze, its prostitutes and its raging all-night entertainment. As one of the largest European cities in the New World, it was also home to a number of very wealthy plantation owners. It was devastated by an estimated 7.5-magnitude earthquake in June of 1692, which sucked it into the ground on its unstable sand foundations and killed about 2,000 people. Its ruin was seen by the pious as retribution for all that had occurred there.

Forty feet of water now separate the remains of Port Royal from the surface of the sea; though it was still visible from above until the early 20th century, it has continued to sink and much of it is now covered with sand. It, too, has been an incredible site for archaeological exploration, revealing artifacts in near-perfect condition, like a pocket watch from 1686 stopped at 11:46.

Dwarka, Gulf of Cambay, India

(images via: city of dwaraka)

Could the undeniably geometric ruins in India’s Gulf of Cambay be the lost city of Lord Krishna? Many Indians believe so, designating Dwarka as an important site for Hindu pilgrimage. The ruins are located just off the coast of modern-day Dwarka, one of the seven oldest cities in India. The ancient Dwarka was a planned city built on the banks of the Gomati river but was eventually deserted and submerged into the sea, as documented in texts like the Mahabharata and Purana, though some experts maintain that it was mythological.

As the story goes, Lord Krishna had a beautiful and prosperous city built, with 70,000 palaces made of gold, silver and other precious metals. It was his death that supposedly sent Dwarka sinking into the sea.

The ruins, discovered in 2000 and investigated with acoustic techniques, are known as the Gulf of Khambat Cultural Complex. They’re 131 feet beneath the surface. One of the artifacts dredged up by scientists was dated around 7500 BCE, which could support the theories that it is, in fact, the ancient Dwarka.

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Submerged Cities 7 Underwater Wonders Of The World

Twenty years ago, a dank, lawless, congested and compacted city located just outside Hong Kong was evacuated and destroyed, putting an end to the nearly century-old settlement first created as a Chinese military fort. Kowloon Walled City was packed with at least 50,000 inhabitants in 6.5 acres just before its demolition in 1993, and its history included a period of mob rule with sky-high rates of prostitution, gambling and drug use. Today, it’s the Kowloon Walled City Park, a tranquil place modeled on traditional gardens of the early Qing dynasty.

The former fort became an enclave when Britain gained control of the New Territories, which is one of the three main regions of Hong Kong. During World War II, as the Japanese occupied Hong Kong, the walled city’s population began to multiply dramatically. Once Japan surrendered, China announced plans to take back the city from Britain, and even more refugees poured inside, increasing the number of squatters to 2,000. Unable to drive them out, both China and Britain washed their hands of the situation, allowing it to rule itself.

But it was hardly a democracy that rose inside Kowloon in response. Underground mob groups increased already-rampant crime, taking control of brothels, gambling parlors and opium dens. Hong Kong police would only attempt to infiltrate the city in large groups.

The architecture of Kowloon Walled City was haphazard, rising vertically with such narrow alleyways on the interior that sunlight rarely penetrated to street level. Pipes constantly dripped onto pedestrians. Children climbed to the rooftops to play. Many interior apartments had no windows. These factors came together to give it a dystopian feel, popularizing it as a setting for novels and games.

Exasperated with the unsafe, unsanitary conditions, China and Britain mutually agreed to tear it down. In its place, a 330,000-square-foot park was created, completed in 1995. Paths and pavilions inside are named after the streets and buildings of the vanished Walled City. Some artifacts, like entrance plaques and the city’s south gate, are on display. Where the city’s 300 interconnected buildings once stood are now floral walks, ponds and carefully cultivated gardens. Catch a glimpse into Kowloon Walled City’s fascinating past at the website of photographer Greg Girard.

All that remains of the old Curon Venosta is the tip of a bell tower, emerging from Lago di Resia like a tombstone for the flooded town. The alpine village was inundated with water shortly after World War II when officials decided to join three pre-existing lakes into one large man-made lake. The entire town is still down there, filled with sand.

Located in the Italian Alps, Curon Venosta (known in Austria as Graun) was rebuilt at a higher elevation. The point of joining the three lakes together was to create a hydroelectric dam. In addition to the town of Curon Venosta, 163 houses and nearly 1,300 acres of land planted with fruit were flooded. The church from which the Campanile di Curon rises was built in the fourteenth century. The bell tower has been left to stand as a historic memorial, and was restored in 2009 to repair cracks.

The tower, as seen above, is surrounded by sand, during recent renovations at which time the lake level was lowered.

In the winter months, when the lake freezes over, it’s possible to walk right up to the spire. Local legend has it that though the bells were removed during a restoration in the 1950s, they can still be heard ringing inside the tower. The project was originally planned in the early 1900s, plans drawn in the 1910s and grants given in 1920s with work started in the late 1930s, but its full execution was delayed in part by the second World War thus not finished until the 1940s.