1 Fordlandia
Henry Ford bought an area of Brazilian rainforest the size of Connecticut to build ‘Fordlandia’, the greatest rubber plantation known to man, where alcohol, women, and football were banned. It produced almost no rubber, immediately descended into rioting and disease, and was abandoned.
2. Ong’s Hat is a ghost town in southern New Jersey. It is home to one of the first internet conspiracy theories according to which it has an inter-dimensional portal known as the EGG, created by renegade Princeton professors conducting quantum physics experiments.
3. Kitsault is a ghost town in British Columbia, Canada, where lights are still “ON” but no one’s home.
4. Vozrozhdeniya Island in the Aral Sea was a biological weapons testing site for the USSR. It contained spores of the Bubonic Plague and smallpox, but it is now a ghost town. Due to its improper upkeep and Soviet collapse, over the past decade, many dangerous containers have developed leaks.
5. There is a tiny island named Gaiola Island in Italy that’s believed to be cursed. It has therefore subsequently been uninhabited and abandoned because every single owner of the island has either died or suffered a great tragedy.
6 Naukan
Naukan is a deserted Yupik village in Russia, which was once the easternmost settlement in the Eurasian continent. The eviction of the 400 indigenous inhabitants took place in 1954 with the objective of a possible military confrontation with the United States.
7. Deadman’s Island is a small, uninhabited island in Kent, United Kingdom that was used as a burial ground for convicts who died of disease onboard floating prisons about 200 years ago. In 2016, the skeletal remains of at least 200 people were found there. The island is completely banned from the public.
8. The Ohio State Reformatory in Mansfield, Ohio is an abandoned prison where ‘The Shawshank Redemption’ was filmed. It was purchased for $1 in 2000 and converted into a tourist attraction that nets $16 million annually.
9. There is a Canadian island called Devon Island, which is the largest uninhabited island in the world and it is used to simulate a Mars-like environment by scientists because of its uncanny similarity with the Martian surface.
10. The town of Singapore in Michigan became a ghost town after complete deforestation removed its protection from the surrounding sand dunes. It is currently buried beneath the shores of Lake Michigan
11 Moyenne Island
“Moyenne Island” is a small uninhabited island in Seychelles that Brendon Grimshaw bought for £8,000 in 1962. With help from a partner, Rene Antoine Lafortune, Grimshaw transported and bred roughly 120 tortoises onto the island which is now the world’s smallest national park.
12. There is an uninhabited island in the Bahamas known as Pig Beach, which is populated entirely by swimming pigs.
13. Centralia in Pennsylvania became a ghost town due to its massive underground coal fires, which have been burning interrupted since 1962.
14. Disappointment Island is an uninhabited island in New Zealand. In 1868, a steel tanker crashed on the island which killed 68 people, leaving the 15 survivors waiting 18 months to be rescued. In 1907, another ship ended up crashing there and 12 men drowned.
15. The Chinese town of Tianducheng was built to be a near-exact Replica of Paris, complete with a mock-up of Versailles and a copy of The Eiffel Tower. It however is now a giant ghost town with only 2,000 people living there.
16 Falklands
In the Falklands, an abandoned minefield has accidentally become a penguin sanctuary. The mines were set in the Falklands conflict and have remained there since, keeping humans away. The local Magellanic penguins are too small to set them off and have thrived in the area.
17. There is an abandoned subway station under City Hall in New York where no trains stop but you can see it in passing if you take the number 6 train.
18. Many of the scenes in “Elf” were filmed at an abandoned psychiatric hospital (Riverview Hospital) in Vancouver. In the 50’s, Riverview Hospital was home to more than 4,000 patients. The X Files, Supernatural, Saw, Deadpool 2 and many others have filmed scenes on the site.
19. Scientists discovered a cannibalistic ant colony composed entirely of worker ants in a abandoned Soviet Bunker in Poland. They had fallen down ventilation pipes leading into the bunker and reverted to cannibalism to survive. When scientists discovered it, they built a bridge that allowed most of them to escape.
20. An Irish maternity home called “Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home” was operated by nuns in the mid-1900. Long after it was abandoned, in 1975, two kids playing on its grounds found a creepy secret vault “filled to the brim” with skeletons of more than 800 children. Carbon dating confirmed that the remains date from the timeframe relevant to when the maternity home was being operated.
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21 NASA flight facility
There are “ghost islands” off the coast of Virginia that have been uninhabitable since 1936 as they act as a natural barrier to the coast during hurricane season. They are home to a feral horse population, a NASA flight facility, and the second tallest lighthouse in the United States.
22. Abu is an elderly Indonesian man who lives alone on a deserted island (Pulau Cengkeh) with his wife so that he wouldn’t spread his leprosy to others. He makes a living out of raising turtles and taking care of the reef around the island.
23. Ukkusiksalik National Park in Canada is uninhabited now, but the Inuit lived there from the 11th century to the 1960s. Remains of fox traps, tent rings, and food caches have been discovered in the area. Usually, the park can only be visited during a few summer weeks.
24. There is a ghost city in China, called the Tianjin Trade District, which was built to exactly resemble Manhatten. The city now remains completely uninhabited after its rapid construction was suddenly cut short following China’s economic slowdown.
25. “Lost Dakota” is a small portion of the Dakota Territory which was not given to any state in the late 19th century and was subsequently forgotten for five years. It was later annexed by Montana and remains uninhabited to this day, although it is reportedly “infested with grizzly bears.”