Top 10 Ghost Towns

Bodie Town, California

Bodie, California is a ghost town east of the Sierra Nevada mountain range in Mono County, California, United States. Used to be a mining town in the 19th century, Bodie is now recognized as a National Historic Landmark. The ghost town has been administered by California State Parks since becoming a state historic park in 1962, and receives about 200,000 visitors yearly.

Sanzhi Town, Taiwan

An abandoned hotel/apartment complex that looks like somewhere ET might call home, in the small town of Sanzhi, located along the north coast of Taiwan.

Gunkanjima Area, Northern Cyprus

Varosha is a settlement in Northern Cyprus. Prior to the Turkish Invasion of Cyprus in 1974, it was the modern tourist area of the city of Famagusta. For the last three decades, it has been left as a ghost town.

Gunkanjima Island, Japan

Off the westernmost coast of Japan, is an island called 'Gunkanjima' that is hardly known even to the Japanese. It used to be a platform city built above the mid-Atlantic rift.

Medieval Town of Balestrino, Italy

Due to seismic instability the residents were moved out decades ago, leaving behind a perfectly preserved but piecemeal museum of modern and medieval history. Still, visit it soon: the next earthquake in the area may be the last this old town ever sees.

Katoli's World Amusement Park, Taiwan

The park was closed after a massive earthquake on September 21st, 1999. Thousands of people were killed during the quake but unlikely that anyone was killed in the park as it was a Tuesday and likely closed.

Centralia, Pennsylvania, United States

Centralia is a borough in Columbia County, Pennsylvania, United States. Its population has dwindled from over 1,000 residents in 1981 to 12 in 2005 and 9 in 2007, as a result of a mine fire burning beneath the borough since 1962.

Resort Town of Yashima, Japan

Yashima is a high and open plateau on one of the main islands of Japan. During peak economic years in the 1980s investors decided to create a resort village complete with a half-dozen hotels, curio shops and a rail line to the top of the peak of the city. When the economy fell on harder times and they could not bring in the tourist dollars the entire village was shut down, leaving many shops with eerie remnant collections of collectible tourist goodies and leaving furniture and other relics in the hotels and other support buildings.

Pripyat City, Ukraine

Prypiat, or Pripyat, is an abandoned city in the zone of alienation in northern Ukraine, Kiev Oblast, near the border with Belarus. It was home to the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant workers. The city was abandoned in 1986 following the Chernobyl disaster. Its population had been around 50,000 prior to the accident.

Craco Village, Italy

Craco is an abandoned Italian village located in the Region of Basilicata and the Province of Matera. It's left behind by the former residents because of poor agricultural conditions and recurring earthquakes.

[From crienglish]