Ghost towns around the world

If this sounds like a made-up place, that’s because it is. Henry Ford bought and built the town of Fordlandia in Brazil, hoping to turn it into a worker’s paradise and an anchor for the business in South America. The copious amount of rubber he was hoping to yield from the trees of the Amazon were never produced and the trees became diseased. The workers rioted several times because of a lack of a decent food supply and segregation.

The area of Salisbury Plain encompasses a couple of towns that were used as military defense training zones during World War II. The villagers who once lived there were told to evacuate the area for military use and no one has been allowed back since. However, now you can visit the ghost towns of Imber and Copehill Down in Salisbury Plain as a tourist spot.

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Most people have never heard of this town, but Döllersheim is actually an important piece of Adolf Hitler’s history. The ancestral home of his parents, Hitler ordered it blown to bits by after Germany took control of Austria. Why he did so remains a mystery, but some suspect that it was an effort to cover up part of the evil tyrant’s life story.

When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005, hundreds of thousands of people were displaced from their homes because of the widespread destruction and massive flooding. The protective measures that were in place to keep the low elevation city from being flooded had broken, and places like Six Flags New Orleans were completely submerged and left to their fate. Now it remains a creepy, abandoned theme park that is touched only by decay.

Once successful because of its sugar mill, the plantation of Bulowville was razed to the ground during the Second Seminole War by a tribe of Seminole Indians. However, the ruins of estate, mill, and the slaves’ quarters still remain. It is a protected area now called the Bulow Plantation Ruins Historic State Park.

Craco was a village built in medieval times that thrived for hundreds of years. Despite its share of plagues and crime, the city survived only to be done in by mother nature. A series of landslides in the 20th century finally did the place in. However, Craco did have its moments in the sun as the background of The Passion of the Christ.

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Like many ghost towns, the once prosperous Hashima Island was abandoned because of the eventual collapse of its mines. It used to be the most populated place in Japan, but now it is one of the world’s most intriguing ghost towns. Movie producers and scientists are currently the only people who spend prolonged periods of time there.

This Cambodian ghost town is the only place on this list that was abandoned not once, but twice. Always a turbulent and troubled country, Cambodia has been at the mercy of militant forces both foreign and domestic. Initially, Bokor Hill Station was created by French colonists, or rather, the Cambodian slaves they hired to do the job. It was abandoned, then taken again as an operations post by the Khmer Rouge. Again, the town was soon left to rot.

Affectionately called ‘Hell House,’ St Mary’s College in Maryland was abandoned when a fire of unknown origin engulfed the institution. They moved their facilities to another location nearby, but the ruins of the old building still stand, serving as a propagator of urban legends and ghost stories.

Once a haven for upwards of 33,000 immigrants and wanderers, Kowloon Walled City in Hong Kong is now completely deserted. When it was bustling, it was a centre for crime and drugs, a city of lawlessness. After some decades, it was eventually descended upon by the Chinese government and demolished. Its ruins still remain.

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