Ghost Cities of The World

When you hear about the abandoned cities what comes to your mind first? Carthage, or maybe, Machu Picchu?

But not all of them are so far away from us by distance and time. Some of them were abandoned not in Antiquity. They are still standing somewhere in the neighborhood, with broken windows, as empty eye’s sockets, observing desert streets.

So why do people suddenly abandon their houses, leaving everything they had been working for? There are mainly two reasons why people suddenly, or little by little, leave the place where they used to live for years or even generations: the danger and economic factors. What is interesting: the biggest number of abandoned villages and farms can be found in the Unites States and the countries of the former USSR. Now, let us take an excursion to some of the most famous ghost cities of the world.

San Zhi, Taiwan

San Zhi is an abandoned vacation resort on the northern coast of Taiwan. It was built in the early 1980s, but the construction of the futuristic resort ceased after a series of fatal accidents and what is more important – after the economic crisis. Even though it was never opened as a vacation resort, San Zhi can still be toured. The strange pod-like buildings get a tourist attraction. The colors of the pod-like buildings depend on their location. The buildings in the west are green, in the east – pink, in the south – blue, and in the north – white.

Hashima Island, Japan

Hashima Island, commonly called Gunkanjima (meaning “Battleship Island”) is one among 505 uninhabited islands in the Nagasaki Prefecture about 15 kilometers from Nagasaki itself. The island was populated from 1887 to 1974 as a coal mining facility.

Mitsubishi bought the island in 1890 and started the project, which the aim of was retrieving coal from the bottom of the sea. They built Japan’s first large concrete building, a block of apartments in 1916 to accommodate their burgeoning ranks of workers (many of them were forcibly recruited laborers from other parts of Asia), and to resist the typhoon destruction.

In 1959 the population density reached its maximum: 835 people per hectare of land in the suburbs, and 1391 people per hectare in major areas. This was the highest rate not only for Japan but for the whole world.

But in the 1960s, since the petroleum replaced the coal in Japan, coal mines were shut down all over the country, and Hashima’s mines made no exception. Mitsubishi officially announced the closing of the mine in 1974, and today it is empty and bare. That’s exactly why it’s called the Ghost Island. There is no one living on Hashima now.

But some places are abandoned only in the result of serious disasters. Like in the way it happened to Pripyat city in Ukraine.

Pripyat is the abandoned city in the zone of alienation in the northern Ukraine. The city was founded in 1970 to house the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant workers, and was abandoned in 1986 after the Chernobyl disaster. The city’s population made around 50,000 people prior to the accident. The city was evacuated in two days. People, who had left their houses those days, never returned back. Because of the high radiation rate, the city would be dangerous for living for many years ahead. Though, nowadays you can still take an excursion to Pripyat after putting on special clothing.

All these stories are quite sad and dramatic. I really hope, that in the nearest future there will be no ecologic and economic disasters, which make people run away from their houses. Moreover, I hope that mankind will change the extensive way of development to intensive way, and would not abandon “used” cities so easy.