Thank you so much for watching. If you liked the video, leave a like, and don’t forget to hit that subscribe button if you’re new here. We will have many, many more videos like this one to come in the very near future. This has been Jake from Web Watch, thanks for watching.
10. Craco, Italy
- Craco was once a thriving medieval village located in the south of Italy. It sits atop a large rock formation overlooking the gulf of Taranto. The town was once a monastic center, a feudal town, and a center of education with a university, a castle, a church, piazzas, and more. At its peak in 1561, Craco was a large exporter of grain, oil, vegetables, wine, and cotton. Unfortunately, in 1656, a plague struck Craco, reducing the population significantly. The rest of the population was forced to leave the town. Following this, the city never recovered due to its collapsing infrastructure.
9. Kayaköy, Turkey
- Originally built in the 1700s in what was Greece at the time, this town was once home to over 20,000 people in the early 20th century. Unfortunately, when World War I hit, the Ottoman Empire collapsed and Greece lost the land to Turkey. The town was a large Greek Orthodox community, and when Turkey took it over the community was forced to flee. Since then, the town has sat abandoned with approximately 350 homes falling apart.
8. Polyana, Abkhazia
- Polyana was once a decently sized town with over 40,000 people living inside it. In 1989, the town found itself caught in the middle of war. The war was between Georgian and Abkhazian armies and forced the people to leave. After the war, only a small few came back.
7. Bodie, California
- Bodie, California was built in the mid to late 19th century in eastern California. By 1876, the town had flourished into a boom town thanks to the gold rush. This attracted several thousand residents. By the 1880s, the town also became a mining town. In 1910, the population was recorded at 698 people, which were predominantly people families who decided to stay in Bodie instead of moving on to other boom towns. Just a few years later, the town went into full decline and by the 40s the mines were shut down and the town was left abandoned where it has sat today.
6. Centralia, Pennsylvania
- Centralia was founded in the late 1700s after colonial settlers bought the land from the Native Americans. Almost 100 years later, in 1856, the first coal mine in Centralia opened. This was followed by four more mines in the area. Little did anyone know, this would be the cause of the town's abandonment.
5. Cahaba, Alabama
- Cahaba, Alabama was the first permanent state capital of Alabama from 1820 to 1825. In 1865, the town suffered a massive flood. The town became defunct, and the capital was moved. The town sits abandoned to this day with churches and old government buildings still lining the old unpaved roads.
4. Fortress of Shali, Siwa Oasis, Egypt
- The ghost town of Shali lies near Egypt's isolated Siwa Oasis, about 350 miles west of Cairo. The town was built in the 1200s. It was a large fortress which would act as Egypt’s first line of defense from any westward attack. The buildings were made out of a salt and mud mixture that should not have stood the test of time. Amazingly, the structures, while very weathered, still stand today.
3. Pripyat, Ukraine
- What's a video about ghost towns without mentioning Pripyat? Pripyat was founded in 1970 as a nuclear city to serve the nearby Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. Just 16 years later one of the reactors at the power plant melted down during a test where safety systems were turned off. The reactor exploded and sent radioactive material into the air. The town of Pripyat was completely abandoned in less than 2 days after the disaster. Many people were killed in the following years from radiation-caused diseases, and the town will be completely uninhabitable until at least the year 2200.
2. Varosha, Cyprus
- Varosha, Famagusta is an abandoned oceanfront town with a violent past. The city was doing very well until 1974 when the Turkish Army invaded the city. The Greeks engaged them in the streets of Varosha and the 39,000 people who lived there were forced to flee in fear of their lives.
1. Hashima Island, Japan
- Hashima Island was just a patch of unsettled land before 1800. When coal was found in 1810, though, miners came to the island in droves. By the early 1900s, multiple mines were created as well as apartment buildings for the miners and their families. At its peak, over 5,000 people were packed onto Hashima Island. By the 1970s, petroleum had replaced coal and the mines on the island began to shut down. In 1974, the last mine shut down and the island was completely abandoned just a few months later.