15 Largest Abandoned Cities In The World

ghost towns are fascinating and haunting places steeped in curiosity just what is it that drove everyone away and why has nothing been done to renovate and repopulate them they just sit there rotting collecting dust and weeds grow destined to become future playgrounds for historians and architects but it's not always just small towns that are abandoned for whatever reason on some occasions entire cities can wind up for empty and the stories of those places are even more fascinating these are the largest abandoned cities in the world [Applause] number 15 oridos kangbashi china in an unusual turn the city of ordos kangbashi is one of the few cities in the world to be highlighted both for its impressive beauty and magnificence as well as its complete lack of well anything this is not just a ghost town this is a ghost utopia in 2003 construction began on what was heralded to be the newest major city in china an architectural marvel to be built in the middle of the empty desert that would provide modern homes for over a million people eventually that number was brought down to around 300 000 which even now seems optimistic in 2009 publications began reporting that the city was a ghost town almost entirely devoid of life a home for seemingly nobody the reason was that apparently the grand structures were allegedly too big for residents to enjoy comfortably and the need to drive just about everywhere in the city resulted in no physical life on the streets technically the city of ordos kanbashi is not abandoned but those that have been would tell you that it certainly feels that way few people visit and even fewer move there despite being home to 100 000 people and despite every apartment being sold to people outside of the city the place is basically one big ghost utopia how delightful like this video smash the subscribe button and click the notification bell right now or slenderman will come from under your bed when you're sleeping number 14 hashima island honestly we could probably fill this whole list with abandoned islands on the continent of asia but very few of them could measure up to the one more commonly referred to as battleship island sadly it does not also function as a transformers-like battleship sorry i checked multiple times situated around nine miles from the city of nagasaki and boasting an impressive population of zero according to a 2016 census that nobody took hashima island is just one 505 abandoned or otherwise uninhabited islands in the nagasaki prefecture but it wasn't always this way in 1887 the island became home to several undersea coral mines that became a big part of the industrialization of japan requiring as many as 5 259 people to live nearby just to work it but by 1974 the coral was running short and when the mines closed the residents went back to the mainland the place has been abandoned ever since the island is around 16 acres in total mass making it only slightly larger than the island of manhattan and all of the apartment blocks and other buildings remain pretty much intact battleship island is basically just a big city with no life which is slightly disappointing but i remain hopeful that the island is an optimist prime type transformer in waiting number 13 ashgabat turkmanistan a quick look at ashkabat and you could easily be convinced that this is not an abandoned city but the funny thing is the streets are shockingly empty during the day almost like a ghost town it's the capital of turkmenistan it's home to a million people and there's so much that would appeal to tourists it all just seems impossible yet ashgabat is often called the city of the dead and it's pretty easy to see why hint it has nothing to do with zombies turkmenistan has developed something of a reputation among world travelers who have come to refer to it as the new north korea due to its sheltered yet bizarrely glossy capital and dislike for basic human rights ashkebat is a city designed to be seen by the world a large construct made up of stadiums hotels apartment buildings and structures built to break world records including bizarrely the world's largest indoor ferris wheel but the city imposes strict laws on those within it it's illegal to say anything remotely negative about the leader and it's illegal to leave the city limits for example if these laws are broken people are known to disappear where they go nobody knows in its own special way ashgabat is a twisted version of a disneyland area a constructed area designed to evoke a feeling just don't say the wrong thing or that feeling will be fear maybe we don't know what happens number 12 ruby arizona as far as ghost towns go there may be none better preserved than the sleepy town of ruby arizona in this abandoned ghost town in the arizona desert mountains nestled at the bottom of arizona state ruby is a long abandoned mining town that is almost exactly as it was back in the early 20th century in fact there are still two people living in the town in the late 19th century miners working at the foot of montana peak set up a camp in a town that they called bear valley a little area in santa cruz county arizona then in 1922 the owner of the camp's general store established the post office naming it ruby after his wife and re-christening it bear valley forever in the process despite being home to the gruesome ruby murderers something to look into if you're into true crime ruby still proved charming enough that up to 1 200 people made it their home throughout the 1930s but when the mine closed in 1940 things took a turn financially and by the end of 1941 the whole town was abandoned today ruby is one of two preserved mining towns in arizona and the two residents often give guests guided tours of the once prosperous town well it's not like they have anything else to do number 11 yandu chung china they often say that imitation is the best form of flattery but this really takes it to a whole other level only 2 000 live there full time making it feel more like a ghost town tian du chang is one of several european clone cities constructed in china a smaller scale version of paris constructed in rural china listen it's weird but it's impressive tiandu-chang is just one in a series of chinese-built western copycat cities replicating the architecture of monuments of cities like london venice and even wyoming if you can believe that measuring around 12 square miles yandu chang has everything you could possibly want from paris a 354 foot tall replica of the eiffel tower blocks and blocks of parisian-styled apartment buildings fountains gardens the only thing missing really is well civilization at the time of opening the city was labeled a ghost town due to a lack of residence leaving businesses vacant apartment blocks empty and basically rendering the whole thing a big waste of money as the french would say oh no the city has also come under fire by the chinese government itself who believe that there is not enough traditional chinese culture present within these cities still development on the city has continued since its construction and a new metro station may well bring some life to the place i for one am looking forward to the chinese equivalent of bikini bottom number 10 triplet ukraine if there's any city in the world that has a valid reason to be abandoned it's probably pripyat 50 000 people used to live here now it's a ghost town sitting near the belarus ukraine border prep yat was founded for one reason to help serve the nearby chernobyl nuclear power plant and we all know how that ended that's right this is a radioactive city measuring around seven million and ninety thousand square feet in area prep yat was designed to be a beautiful home for those that were set to work at the nearby power plant with cinemas gyms playgrounds and even a public railway station sure enough by 1979 the city had grown to be a home to around 49 000 people which makes the next part all the more painful just one day following the 1986 chernobyl disaster the whole city was evacuated by april 29th pripyat had been transformed into a ghost city as everyone that made it their home was forced to leave while the city is still uninhabited for obvious reasons pripyat is a popular location for tourists and is considered to be relatively safe while the radiation is pretty low it's still not the kind of place you'd like to live but it would be quiet at least number nine corador glen france in june 1944 the sleepy village of oradour sir glenn was disrupted by the violent arrival of the nazis [Music] the ss soldiers massacred 642 innocent residents within hours in what they claimed was a retaliation attack for partisan activity and the kidnapping of ss commander helmut kampf the town never recovered from the massacre and remains abandoned to this day following the defeat of the nazis many french officials wanted to rebuild oradour circling hoping to rid the country of all remnants of the nazis for good but general charles de gaulle refused to rebuild insisting that the village would remain intact to remind visitors of the cruelty and barbaric acts that the nazis inflicted upon those innocents a new village was later built nearby for future residents but the old one remains standing and open to tourists and is apparently just as haunting as you would expect from a story like that what happened at oradorus or glen is just one in a series of devastatingly tragic moments in history and one from which the french have never been able to move on the town is still filled with bicycles burned out cars and wrecked buildings that really do stand as a reminder of the atrocities perpetuated by the nazis number eight cody california ghost towns are always pretty creepy but there's something especially twilight zonish about bodhi california that there is a real wild west gold rush eric ghost town about 75 miles southeast of lake tahoe bodhi is an old mining town in the middle of nowhere and man it is creepy in the 1870s gold was a hot property in the state of california all owing to the gold rush craze of the period but in 1876 gold was discovered in the town of bodhi leading many opportunistic miners to rush into town and build a mining camp on the site just three years later the town was citing a 5 000 to 7 000 person population and producing gold often valued at insanely high figures as gold rose the town began building extra amenities including a bank railroad jail 65 saloons a red light district a chinatown a cemetery and a brass band that's pretty impressive for a simple old mining town but by 1880 bodhi was taking some hits across the american west other towns were having their own mining booms and luring away the get rich quick miners that had once built brody into a thriving city of its own the town quickly became a family-oriented community and by the time the last mine closed in 1942 its population was 90. in just 10 years that number would drop to zero to this day the population remains at zero number seven placo italy the italians have always had a unique way of transforming natural rocks and cliffs into gorgeous palaces and homes but the old town of krakow is something particularly impressive and just a little eerie it might not be a surprise to know that krakow was uninhabited when you remember that it's sitting atop a 1 300 foot tall cliff but there's more to the eerie silence than just a lot of hiking as far back as the 8th century bc krakow has been home to italians greeks romans many of whom were hoping to avoid the war mongering going on in the world below unfortunately they didn't stop to consider one more pressing concern for a cliffside town natural disasters a devastating series of earthquakes landslides and floods forced an exodus of the town's residents in 1963 bringing the final 1800 inhabitants down to ground level the town has been uninhabited ever since probably because it's only a matter of time before catastrophe to make matters worse the town has been crumbling since the millennium with many buildings either reduced to rubble or near to collapse events continue to be held in town but since only 35 people are allowed in the city at once it's a pretty exclusive guest list number six humber stone chili while strange place names are pretty common around the world there is something about humber stone that is extra odd for one it's undecidedly unchillian in a country that has names like santiago valpreso and pichalemu humberstone sounds like someone got confused and mislabeled the map well apparently that's not quite the case although i still think that's what happened humberstone is a former mining town located in northern chile's atacama desert and is named after james humberstone a british chemical engineer who made a fortune out of mining the desert for saltpeter a mineral used to produce fertilizer during the late 19th century chile was known around the world for its saltpeter and the mineral was believed to be the product holding the country's economy up but when world war 1 broke out the british banned the export of salt peter to germany forcing the germans to develop their own materials and all but putting chile out of business in the process despite being completely abandoned since this initial banning the town's buildings are still intact with the company store the band stand a hotel and even a cinema still standing it's like they never left but you know they did it's basically dead number 5. mandu india throughout history india has always been renowned for its phenomenal architecture from the magnificent taj mahal to the mizor palace but one of the most impressive structures is actually the 500 year old abandoned city of mandu and man it's beautiful [Music] between 1401 and 1561 mandu was the wealthy capital of a northern indian muslim state and a flourishing fortress town in its own right but almost 500 years later the place is completely devoid of life with no inhabitants most surprisingly no western tourists visiting mandu has often been referred to as a treasure trove of indian history containing the remnants of palaces tombs and monuments despite all this time passing most of the structures are still intact and easy to wander around allowing visitors to step into a 500 year old world and take in the impressive sight of ancient indian architecture local visitors often visit the site of mandu to celebrate the ganesh chaturthi a hindu festival commemorating the birth of ganesh the elephant god but for western tourists this is an almost completely unheard of location leaving it all but abandoned for much of the year number four ferocious cyprus just imagine the sight elizabeth taylor richard burton and bridget bardeaux enjoying a beautiful day in the bright cypress sunshine in the glorious city of varosha in the early 1970s and now imagine that same gorgeous city completely empty covered with plants and with the public forbidden from entering that's pretty much what we're dealing with here back in the early 1970s ferocious was the most popular tourist destination in all of cyprus and one of the most popular in the world a label that prompted cypriots to launch hotels and apartment buildings specifically designed for vacationing tourists hollywood stars flocked to the city to take in the sights and tourists from all around the world soaked up the sun alongside them it was glorious then came 1974. in 1974 amidst the turkish invasion of cyprus the turkish army managed to gain control of the city fencing it off and refusing entry to anyone other than the turkish military thousands were forced out of their homes never to be allowed to return since the 1974 invasion turkey has maintained power over varossa ensuring that it remains forbidden for any member of the public to step foot on its ground buildings have decayed streets have been taken over by plants and the place has become a notorious ghost town with seemingly no change on the horizon pretty bleak stuff number 3 centralia pennsylvania billy joel once proudly sang we didn't start the fire but didn't ever clarify to which fire he was referring to pennsylvania roads are generally not very good but generally not this bad well despite the advice of our lawyers we've come to believe it may well be the centralia minefire which really has always been burning since the world's been turning well since 1962 but who really knows how long the world's been turning anyway at its peak in 1890 centralia was home to 2007 residents many of whom worked for the local mining companies but by 2017 long after the mining companies had closed that population had dwindled to just five so what was it that drove out all these residents you asked sarcastically after i mentioned it in the first paragraph the centralia mine fire in 1962 a coal seam fire erupted in the mines beneath centralia stretching over 8 miles and burning some 300 feet deep the instability caused by these raging fires made centralia's roads and houses a dangerous place to live or even move around on forcing most residents out to safer areas the fire is still burning beneath centralia and experts have estimated that it will continue to do so for another 250 years but for legal reasons billy joel had nothing to do with it that we know of anyway number two ballistrino italy this entry is not just about an abandoned hillside town in italy it's also a straight up mystery when even locals are confused about what exactly took place within the city it really just makes us all the more curious to go explore it although that is the start of just about every horror movie so we should probably give that one a miss unlike most other ghost towns in the world the reason for ballistrino's silence is entirely unknown nobody knows why the town was abandoned or when or even why or even by whom all we know is that the town is still standing albeit decaying at nature's typically speedy pace and to make matters even more intriguing the town has been fenced off by authorities again for reasons that nobody fully understands although we can wildly speculate are they keeping people out or something in palestrino is a beautiful town but it is nothing short of a mystery nobody knows what is within the town's walls or even what happened and given that nobody can even step foot inside of it it's likely that this mystery will never actually be solved we'll just have to settle for a quick peek over the wall and a role in a real life horror movie number one north brother island new york it doesn't feel like a particularly smart idea to build a hospital on an island but i suppose that's part of the charm of brother island north brother island is one of two islands in new york city's east river and is probably most well known to new yorkers as that island where the building is covered with grass in 1885 the previously uninhabited north brother island became the new home for riverside hospital a facility designed to treat victims of quarantinable diseases like smallpox but nothing lasts forever and after decades of treating patients the hospital closed in the late 1930s leaving the island once again uninhabited shortly after the end of world war ii the island became home to war veterans and would later be transformed into a 1950s rehab center for young drug addicts but after that turned into a hostile prison situation the rehab was shut down in 1963 yet another case of the island being abandoned since 1963 the island has been all but abandoned while many politicians have sought out uses for it nothing has ever been approved and the public has been forbidden from entering at the time of this video the island is being used as a sanctuary for shorebirds although any island is a sanctuary if humans can't step onto it right which of these abandoned cities would you most love to check out let us know in the comments also check out our other cool stuff showing up on screen right now see you next time you

Channel: The Genius Lemon

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Rating: 4.7315598 out of 5

Keywords: abandoned, ghost town, abandoned places, abandoned city, city, urbex, haunted, china, ghost towns, abandoned towns, creepy, scary, exploring, ghost city, town, facts, places, urban, abandoned buildings, urban exploration, abandoned building, biggest, in the world, abandoned town, largest, buildings, travel, haunted places, creepiest, paranormal, exploration, largest abandoned city, abandoned ghost towns, creepy abandoned places, modern ghost towns, mystery, abandoned house, abandoned cities

Id: KDEgdEPSaWk

Length: 22min 2sec (1322 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 18 2020