60 Weird Abandoned (Ghost Towns) & Uninhabited Places

The beaches of uninhabited Henderson Island of the Pitcairn Islands are littered with highest density of plastic rubbish in the world because of the South Pacific Gyre currents.

27. In Oklahoma, there exists a ghost town named Picher that was so polluted from lead mining that leftover minerals have caused the rivers to turn red. Children who went swimming in the arsenic-filled water thought they were just getting sunburnt - in reality, they were being covered in chemical burns.

28. Burj Al Babas is an abandoned $200 million residential development located near the Turkish town of Mudurnu. The homes in the development are designed to resemble Disney-style miniature castles. After the developer went bankrupt and economic slowdown, the whole development remains unsold and lays uninhabited.

29. Thames Town is in a suburb outside of Shanghai, China, which was built to resemble a small British market town. However, due to the high cost of living, very few houses were sold and most of the town remains uninhabited. Right now, it mainly serves as a backdrop for wedding photographs.

30. There is an idyllic island (Ilha da Queimada Grande) uninhabited by humans off the coast of Brazil that's crawling with venomous golden lancehead pit vipers. According to estimates, there's one snake per square meter on the island, making it illegal to step foot there.

The city of Treece in Kansas was abandoned and is now a ghost town because past mining caused long-lasting lead pollution.

32. The city of Ordos in China is considered to be the largest ghost town on Earth with the prefectural administrative region covering 86,752 square kilometers (33,495 square miles). Half-way constructed buildings blanket the town and only 2% of its buildings were ever filled.

33. The North Korean village of Kijong-dong, which lies just across the border from South Korea, has been nicknamed “Propaganda Village.” It is apparently uninhabited and for many years it had speakers that broadcasted propaganda across the border 24/7.

34. There is a 'ghost-town' millionaires resort on an island named Varosha in Cyprus. The Turkish military does not allow anyone inside and hasn’t done so for nearly 40 years.

35. Buffalo City, North Carolina, the once tight-knit logging boomtown and “moonshine capital” was visited by FDR on a trip to Roanoke. Built-in the middle of nowhere, they relied on alcohol tourism during the 1920s and 30s, but “mysteriously” turned into ghost town after prohibition ended.

The Isle of Pabbay in the Hebrides was abandoned when every male resident of the island was lost at sea. Another of the Isles had all its sheep washed away by a wave.

37. When Cape Cod's village of Long Point, Massachusetts became a ghost town, its residents took their houses with them, by floating them across the harbor.

38. US government had a top secret Cold War project named “Iceworm” whose objective was to build nuclear missile sites under the Greenland ice sheet. Abandoned due to ice instability, it was assumed that the chemical and radioactive waste inside it would remain under the ice forever. It is now predicted that this waste will re-enter the environment in 2100.

39. The island of Cozumel is the largest inhabited island within Mexico and it served as a place of pilgrimage for the Mayans. In 1520, when Spanish settlers brought smallpox with them, the local population went from over 10,000 to just over 300, and by 1600, the island lay entirely abandoned.

40. After the 1980 film Popeye flopped, the set was abandoned, so the locals of Mellieha, Malta reclaimed it as a Popeye theme park.

Hans Island is a tiny uninhabited Arctic island that’s claimed by both Canada and Denmark. Traditionally, Canadian expeditions leave behind a bottle of whiskey for the Danes, while Danish sailors leave Aquavit.

42. The town of Times Beach in Missouri was abandoned after its dirt roads were treated with Dioxin, an oily byproduct of Agent Orange and hexachlorophene, in an attempt to control its dust problem. Eventually, the town was purchased with superfunds money to clean up the old town.

43. There is an uninhabited island in New York City called North Brother Island that has in the past housed a quarantine hospital and a teenage drug rehab center. It is now a bird sanctuary.

44. The ghost village of Epecuén in Argentina has only a single inhabitant, Pablo Novak. The once touristic town became uninhabitable after a flood slowly consumed it in 1985. The waters began to recede in 2009 and Novak returned to the home of his youth to live alone with his dogs.

45. There is a ghost town in California called Bagdad and it currently holds the record for the longest period without rain in the United States.

Ailsa Craig is an uninhabited island off the coast of Scotland. It is one of only two places on earth where granite for curling stones can be quarried.

47. Fort Jefferson which remains abandoned since 1906 is a huge hexagonal fort occupying nearly the entire island in the Dry Tortugas off Florida. Though never finished, it is the largest brick masonry structure in the Americas.

48. The largest shopping mall in the world is the New South China Mall in Guang Dong Province in China. This 5 million square foot structure can accommodate 2,350 stores and is more than twice the size of Mall of America, but the mall is almost completely deserted and has been classified as a ‘dead mall.’

49. Holland Island in Maryland which was once home to approximately 300 people, fell victim to erosion, losing shoreline, which forced families on it to move. Parts of the now-abandoned island became completely submerged until one house was left standing. After a storm, it finally collapsed in October 2010.

50. There is a modern-day ghost town called 'Eagle Mountain' in California. It was created in 1948 as an iron mining town and was deserted in 1983. The town has been featured in Movies and TV shows, and the local high school is still in operation as an elementary school.