It’s hard to imagine that a busy street could one day stand empty, but these photos show it’s all too possible. From the ghost towns of the Wild West to the deserted streets of the UK, these once-bustling neighbourhoods stand abandoned to the ravages of time. Click or scroll through to take the tour...
Shrouded in leaves and vines, this abandoned fishing village on the northern side of Shengshan Island was originally established in the 1950s, and served as home to more than 2,000 fishermen. However, the lack of education, job opportunities, and the isolation from the mainland led to a steep population decline in the 1990s, and by 2002, the village was completely empty.
Since its abandonment, the village has been completely overgrown by plantlife, giving it the appearance that it’s slowly being eaten by the landscape. After a series of photographs of the deserted village went viral in 2015, Houtouwan became a popular tourist attraction, with visitors flocking to its shores to marvel at the leafy wonderland.
At first the off-the-grid village was ill-equipped to handle the influx of tourists. “Our telephone lines are jammed,” Chen Bo, an official of Shengshan Island, said in an official statement at the time. “We urge visitors to preserve its tranquillity for now.” However, the little island soon adapted to be ready to welcome visitors, and now boasts bed and breakfast accommodation, hiking trails, and a viewing platform.
Situated just outside of Bridgeport, California, Bodie State Historic Park is like a portal back to the height of the California gold rush. This collection of ramshackle old buildings was once a bustling Western outpost, founded after a man named Waterman S. Body discovered a small amount of gold in the nearby hills. The site was later revealed to house massive gold deposits, and more than 10,000 people came flocking to Bodie, eager to strike it rich.
At its peak around 1881, Bodie boasted saloons, gambling halls, brothels, shops, and of course, ironically, a Methodist church to wash away the sins committed in the other buildings. However, as was so often the case with gold rush ‘boomtowns’, the mining supply soon began to run out, and people quickly abandoned Bodie in favour of the next hot spot. While there was some interest in revitalising the practically abandoned town in the 1930s with the introduction of electricity, a fire wiped out all but 10% of the town, quashing the plan.
However, in 1962, Bodie’s remaining buildings were designated as both a State Historic Park and a National Historic Site, earning it the frequent designation of the “Disneyland” of ghost towns. The park attracts thousands of tourists every year, and is preserved just enough to keep the buildings from deteriorating any further, resulting in an atmosphere of eerie suspended decay.
In the heart of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, you’ll find Elkmont, a ghost town with a history that stretches back further than the creation of the park itself. Captured here by Leland Kent for Abandoned Southeast, this former logging community was founded in 1908 but quickly became known as a luxury holiday resort for Knoxville’s elite.
After a direct train line was built from Knoxville to Elkmont in 1909, Knoxville’s upper classes began buying up plots of land and building picturesque log cabins. Glamorous events were held in the town’s two private members clubs and it even boasted its own Millionaire’s Row. However, when the Smoky Mountains National Park was created in the 1930s, most cottage owners sold up and moved on.
Once the remaining leases expired in 1992, the national park planned to demolish the buildings. This sparked 15 years of debate, until eventually plans were announced to restore 19 of the historic structures. Today, the site is a popular tourist destination, home to the largest campground in the national park
In South Liverpool are the much-storied Welsh Streets, a collection of Victorian terraced abandoned houses, which were once home to a young Ringo Starr in the 1950s. Despite their gorgeous period proportions, they were sadly earmarked for demolition in the early 2000s under the government’s Housing Market Renewal Initiative.
The so-called Welsh Streets lay empty for many years after residents of the 99 properties were rehomed. They were used for everything from art installations for the Liverpool Biennial to locations for TV shows such as Peaky Blinders, which explains why Powis Street was given a dark and retro makeover to enable it to double as Watery Lane in 1920s Birmingham.
Heritage groups campaigned for the homes to be refurbished, arguing that the 19th-century terraces were in relatively good condition and were still popular in a locale of Liverpool within a mile of the city centre. Ringo himself soon joined the fight to save the Welsh Streets, and the government subsequently quashed planning permission for demolition and ordered a review. The properties have since been refurbished into rental family homes with communal gardens.
Far from just one deserted street, this whole abandoned island spans 16 acres. Nicknamed Gunkanjima (meaning battleship island) by the Japanese, the island was established in 1887 and was once famed for its undersea coal mines. At its peak, it housed over 5,200 residents, but now its concrete buildings have descended into ruin.
The mine was closed in 1974, when coal reserves ran out, prompting the island’s residents to depart soon after. The island lay undisturbed for the next 30 years. At the mercy of nature and the sea, it quickly grew derelict.
Hashima’s untouched historic ruins slowly started gathering interest from the public in the 2000s, until finally, in 2009, the island was opened to tourists. Thanks to its popularity as a tourist attraction, it’s now protected as a site of industrial heritage and serves as an important symbol of Japan’s rapid industrialisation.
Back in the 1920s, the population of this traditional prairie town in Alberta, Canada, was 500. When the Great Depression struck, residents left the small farming community in search of work, bringing the population down to just eight by the 1970s. Rows of empty buildings and abandoned railway cars were left behind, leaving it a veritable ghost town.
Instead of letting the abandoned town rot and decay, the few remaining residents decided to restore the old buildings, making it a historical attraction for tourists. And it worked! Tourists soon started pouring in from all over Alberta and Rowley even featured in a couple of Canadian films.
These days, the remaining residents of Rowley offer free guided tours throughout the summer and hold pizza parties once a month. Although the last train rolled through the town in 1999, tourists continue to visit this historic ghost town to explore the mix of restored and dilapidated but lovely buildings.
In the huge Namib desert sits the ghost town of Kolmanskop. This former diamond-mining community was once one of the richest towns in Africa. But by the 1930s, the diamond field was starting to deplete. Around the same time, the richest diamond fields ever known were found to the south, causing the town’s inhabitants to leave in droves.
By 1956, the town was completely abandoned. With nobody left to fight against nature, sand dunes soon burst through the doors and filled rooms with waves of sand. In their hurry to leave, many of the town’s residents had abandoned their possessions in their homes, many of which can still be seen today.
Just a stone’s throw from North London’s bustling Kenwood House lies The Bishops Avenue, also known as ‘Billionaires' Row’. With some of the properties here on the market for up to $98 million (£76m), this is often considered one of the richest streets in the world. Yet around 20 of these homes are now completely derelict.
Many of the sprawling mansions on this expensive street are owned by foreign investors who leave them empty. In fact, a third of the houses are uninhabited. Inside these impressive homes, you’ll often find waste and decay – from crumbling staircases to mouldy ceilings and invasive creepers, as captured here by explorers Beyond the Point.
With Britain in the midst of a housing crisis, the uninhabited nature of these huge houses has sparked a great deal of controversy. Some people have claimed they should be used to house the homeless, while in some cases, squatters have taken matters into their own hands and entered the properties illegally.
Craco stands proud, right in the arch of Italy’s southerly boot-shaped peninsula. Built on a steep hill for defensive reasons, it’s a striking site that juts out from the undulating fields surrounding it. At the height of its success, it housed a university and had a population of over 2,500. Yet it now stands empty.
Thought to date back to around the 8th Century BC, Craco’s history hasn’t been easy an easy one. In 1963, the town was evacuated because of a landslide. Many residents decided not to return. Then, in the following 17 years, the town experienced first a flood and then an earthquake, worsening the situation and leaving the site completely abandoned.
Although the town still stands empty, it featured in films including Mel Gibson’s The Passion of Christ and the James Bond film Quantum of Solace. In 2007, descendants of Craco’s residents in the USA set up the ‘Craco Society’ to preserve the town’s history, culture and traditions.
This deserted Greek-Orthodox Christian village sits in the western part of Turkey, just across the water from Greece. During the First World War, Greeks and other Christian minorities were massacred within the Ottoman Empire here. Kayaköy’s inhabitants were removed from their houses and either became refugees in Greece or died in forced labour camps.
Not long after, the Greeks were defeated by Turkey in the Greco-Turkish War of 1919-1922. As part of the peace treaty, all Greek Orthodox refugees were barred from returning to Turkey, including the citizens of Kayaköy. The ghostly village was deserted for good, left to become overrun by weeds.
These days, Kayaköy has become a popular site for tourists and is lined with street vendors. A selection of houses have been restored and are now occupied, but for the most part, Kayaköy remains a ghost town, destined to fascinate all who wander through its rugged streets.
Pripyat was founded in 1970 to provide workers for the Chernobyl Nuclear Plant nearby. Elevated to city status in 1979, at its height Pripyat was a bustling city of 49,360 people. It was home to 25 shops and department stores, 10 gyms and five secondary schools. But now this toxic town stands empty of inhabitants and is fenced off.
When the Chernobyl power plant exploded in 1986, the government of Ukraine evacuated the city. To speed the process along, they told citizens that they’d only be evacuated for a few days, encouraging them to leave most of their personal possessions behind.
In what might seem a surprising turn, Pripyat has since become a much-visited tourist attraction, with visits carefully timed to minimise the effects of radiation. The sorry state of its abandoned amusement park is a familiar sight around the world. Today, Pripyat is a symbol of the dangers of harnessing nuclear power.
This once-thriving community in the province of Zaragoza, Spain, was home to around 4,000 citizens. Then, in 1937, during the Spanish Civil War, thousands of men, women and children were killed here in just two weeks. The fighting was so brutal that after the war was over General Franco decided to leave the village in ruins as a reminder of the Spanish general’s victory, building a new village next door.
Belchite is thought to be one of the most haunted places in the world, and it’s easy to see why. Its streets lie crumbling, its buildings are empty shells and bullet holes mark every surface, with local farmers claiming to hear babies crying at night and children searching for their mothers. But it wasn’t always this way…
Today, the village is particularly popular with ghost hunters, and visitors can walk freely among Belchite’s ruins and explore the reportedly haunted houses. But with desolation apparent at every street corner, Belchite remains a poignant reminder of the devastating effects of war.
Silverton was exactly as the name suggests – a town where people mined silver. It was formed in 1880, just a few years after two men struck silver while out drilling. The lure of riches brought hundreds of miners to the area and in a few years the town’s population grew to 2,000 inhabitants.
Sadly, Silverton’s good fortune wasn’t to last. High-quality silver ore quickly ran out, and by the 20th century, most of the miners had moved on to seek their fortunes elsewhere.
Silverton now has a population of around 50 people. Curiously, the landscape and lighting here are ideal for creating works of art, so the town has become a destination for many artists and art lovers, with some residing in the town and neighbouring areas.
It’s strange to think that this overgrown street was once lined with shops and restaurants. Located in Cyprus but controlled by Turkey, Varosha is the southern quarter of the city of Famagusta. During its heyday, it was a popular tourist destination.
Varosha’s 39,000 inhabitants were forced to flee their homes in 1974, when the Turkish invaded Cyprus and took control of Famagusta. Most of the residents took only what they could carry, leaving their homes and businesses to fall into decay. In some cases, the buildings have been looted.
In October 2020 the abandoned resort started to partially reopen for both settlement and tourism. However, the move prompted backlash from the Greek Cypriots in the south of the island, who reportedly viewed it as an indirect land grab.
High up in the mountains of Eswatini, near to the border of South Africa, lies Bulembu. Once a thriving asbestos mining community, most of the town’s 10,000 inhabitants left to find new jobs once the mine closed in 2001. With just 50 residents left behind, the colourful, painted houses quickly became overgrown with vegetation.
While residents fled the town, a HIV pandemic swept across the country, infecting more than a quarter of all adults and leaving 120,000 children orphaned (over 10% of the country’s population). Horrified by these statistics, Canadian entrepreneur Volker Wagner bought the entire town just five years after it was abandoned, with the aim of using it to care for orphaned children.
Today, more than 350 orphaned children are being cared for in Bulembu. Rather than living in an institutional-style orphanage, each child lives with a caregiver and up to five other children in a refurbished home. It’s hoped that these new families will help to rebuild the fabric of society that was destroyed by the AIDS pandemic.
Weathered personal belongings still litter the site of the "martyred village", which was razed to the ground following the appalling mass killings. The rebuilt village of Oradour-sur-Glane is situated just northwest of the ruins. After the war had ended, French president General Charles de Gaulle, made sure that the village would never be changed so it could serve as a memorial to those that died.
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