Why these 6 ghost towns were abandoned — and what’s left today

Ghost towns are long-lost locations that are frozen in time, which give a glimpse into the forgotten past, from industrial abandon to wartime explosions. There are a lot of destinations of ghost towns and abandoned places all over the world. These destinations serve as living museums where each place has an emotional resonance and historical context.

Let’s get to know more about how these places came to be abandoned and what you’ll see today:

This place is located near Chernobyl in northern Ukraine and was originally built in 1970, which housed the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant workers. But this place was evacuated overnight in April 1986, and since then it has been uninhabited. You can visit this place by guided tours into the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone with a passport and daily radiation monitoring. One goes through mysterious landmarks like the Ferris wheel, abandoned school, and derelict apartment blocks. Radiation exposure during a typical visit is roughly equivalent to a short airplane flight.

This town was a diamond mining town during the early 1900s, which was abandoned in the 1950s and was slowly reclaimed by the desert. After World War I, diamond yields began to decline in the area around Kolmanskop, and that led to miners and residents beginning to leave Kolmanskop in search of better opportunities, and the town was completely deserted by 1956. Slowly, the desert environment began to reclaim the town and the whole of the town got covered in sand. This has become a popular tourist destination as it attracts photographers and history enthusiasts.

This island is located off Nagasaki and was a coal mining town with a lot of amenities like residential buildings, schools, hospitals, and shops, which flourished in the mid-20th century and then was deserted in 1974 as the Japanese coal industry declined because of the shift to petrol, so all residents also began to leave the town. For decades, it has been deserted, and in the 2000s, the interest in Hashima has re-emerged and it was also designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2015 and has been open for tourism since 2009.

This location is located in Norway and used to be a coal mining town during the Soviet era. It was founded in 1910 and was sold to the Soviets in 1927, and in 1998, it was abandoned because of a decline in coal prices. The Russian plane crash that happened in 1996 was also a contributing factor in the abandonment. This place has been largely intact because of the cold weather. Visitors can reach it by boat in summer or snowmobile in winter. A small hotel is open, and limited building tours, shows, and even movie screenings inside restored structures are offered.

This is an abandoned place located at a hilltop in Basilicata, Craco, and was abandoned because of repeated landslides, earthquakes, and floods that hit this town by the 1980s. Today, this abandoned place is used as a cinematic backdrop by filmmakers and photographers. One can explore the narrow stone streets, an abandoned church, and dramatic views across clay hills. This abandoned place is also known as "the capital of all ghost towns." This town is not freely accessible due to safety reasons.

This location is an abandoned Greek village in Turkey, which faced great impact from the Greco-Turkish war. This Ottoman-era Greek village was depopulated in the 1923 population exchange, and now when one visits this town, they will find a museum town with stone houses, churches, and schools. When one visits here, they can walk through the ruins and abandoned places and learn about the tragic past of the town, which also holds great historical significance.