Famous Abandoned Sights of the World

Peo­ple like to vis­it palaces, mon­u­ments, his­tor­i­cal ruins and pop­u­lar stat­ues because they tell sto­ries of the past. At the same time, many are attract­ed by the unknown and the mys­tery of ghost­ly aban­doned places. In fact, such aban­doned sites can also tell a lot about their his­to­ry, the peo­ple liv­ing there, and the pur­pose of the con­struc­tion. But the most impor­tant ques­tion is always the same — why did these places become aban­doned and turned into ghosts?

Hashima Island, Japan

This aban­doned island is locat­ed 15 kilo­me­ters away from Nagasa­ki, Japan. Hashima is also known as Ghost Island because no one has lived here for a long time. It was once famous for its coal indus­try. In 1890, a Mit­subishi group began min­ing these sites with the inten­tion of min­ing coal. The very first and largest con­crete build­ings of the coun­try were built here. Thou­sands of min­ing work­ers lived and worked here at that time. But the Mit­subishi group decid­ed to shut down the entire project when oil replaced coal in 1960. The com­pa­ny com­plete­ly phased out the min­ing indus­try in 1974. Hashima Island was closed for the next 35 years and was com­plete­ly aban­doned. In 2009, the Japan­ese gov­ern­ment once again turned its atten­tion to Hashima, this time decid­ing to send streams of tourists here. Since then, it has become quite a pop­u­lar attrac­tion in Japan.

Michigan Central Station in Detroit

Con­struc­tion of Michi­gan Grand Cen­tral Sta­tion began in 1913 as a major trans­porta­tion sta­tion. The main pur­pose of the con­struc­tion of this sta­tion was to serve the huge flow of pas­sen­gers. But after the Sec­ond World War, many sta­tion ser­vices were reduced due to a large decrease in the num­ber of pas­sen­gers. Michi­gan Cen­tral Sta­tion in Detroit was com­plete­ly closed in 1967. Most of the sta­tion’s build­ings were destroyed, and the sta­tion itself was added to the Nation­al Reg­is­ter of His­toric Places in 1975. The future of Michi­gan Grand Cen­tral Sta­tion is cur­rent­ly still a mat­ter of debate. Read also about aban­doned hous­es in Detroit in a sep­a­rate arti­cle.

IM cooling tower in Belgium

This cool­ing tow­er is part of the aban­doned IM pow­er plant in Mon­ceau, Bel­gium. The IM pow­er sta­tion was estab­lished in 1921 and imme­di­ate­ly became the main sup­pli­er of elec­tric­i­ty for the coun­try. But a large amount of CO2 emis­sions caused the pow­er plant to shut down in 2007. Dur­ing its oper­a­tion, the IM cool­ing tow­er cooled 480,000 gal­lons of water per minute.

Submarine base in Balaklava

Once Bal­akla­va was one of the most secret cities in the Sovi­et Union. This sub­ma­rine base is one of the main attrac­tions of Bal­akla­va. Before the col­lapse of the Sovi­et Union in 1991, peo­ple were not allowed to vis­it Bal­akla­va with­out a good rea­son. The boat repair fac­to­ry was designed to sur­vive a direct hit from an atom­ic bomb. It func­tioned until 1993, but today many of its com­part­ments are com­plete­ly aban­doned. Part of the base is open to tourists as a naval muse­um. Fas­ci­nat­ing excur­sions are con­duct­ed here, where tourists are ini­ti­at­ed into the his­to­ry of this mon­u­men­tal object.

102 year old ship in Sydney

Dur­ing the 20th cen­tu­ry, the SS Air­field served as a trans­port ship, deliv­er­ing car­go from Syd­ney to the Pacif­ic. In 1972, this ship returned to Syd­ney’s Home­bush Bay, as it had served its time. Today, this 102-year-old aban­doned ship still remains in the bay, over­grown with man­grove trees and attract­ing many tourists. The 102-year-old ship is con­sid­ered one of Syd­ney’s pop­u­lar attrac­tions.

Communist Party building in Bulgaria

The home of the Bul­gar­i­an Com­mu­nist Par­ty, or Buzludzha Mon­u­ment is locat­ed in the Balkan Moun­tains of Bul­gar­ia. The build­ing was used from 1981 until 1991 as a meet­ing place for the lead­ers of the Com­mu­nist Par­ty of the Sovi­et Union. Many polit­i­cal con­ven­tions and cer­e­monies of the Com­mu­nist Par­ty were held in this place. The so-called “Tem­ple” was built in a remote area of ​​Bul­gar­ia for 16 mil­lion Bul­gar­i­an Levs, which at that time was an astro­nom­i­cal amount. But the whole region was com­plete­ly aban­doned after the col­lapse of the Sovi­et Union in 1991. Now the Bul­gar­i­an Com­mu­nist Par­ty Build­ing is on the list of the famous aban­doned sights of the world.

Abandoned UFO House in Sanzhi

The Aban­doned Sanzhi UFO House is an aban­doned plate-shaped build­ing in Taipei City, Tai­wan. These facil­i­ties were estab­lished in 1978 as a tourist resort. But the author­i­ties decid­ed to close this com­plex in 1980 due to invest­ment loss­es. As the locals say, this area was once a bur­ial place for sol­diers, and no under­tak­ing will suc­ceed in such a site.

Abandoned theater in Bedford

The new Bed­ford Opera House, also known as the Grand Opera House, opened in 1912. It received vis­i­tors for a long 50 years, but in 1959 the old build­ing was closed and turned into a tobac­co ware­house. Today, most of the the­ater remains an aban­doned land­mark. Only a small part of it has a super­mar­ket.

Hotel Salto in Colombia

Hotel Salto is locat­ed on the cliffs of the Colom­bian cap­i­tal of Bogotá, direct­ly oppo­site the 157 meters high Tequen­dama water­fall. The Salto Hotel opened in 1928 for tourists who come to see the water­fall. Direct­ly from the win­dows of Salto, breath­tak­ing views of this nat­ur­al land­mark open up. A tourist lost inter­est in vis­it­ing Tequen­dam when the Bogotá Riv­er became extreme­ly pol­lut­ed. Year after year the hotel expe­ri­enced a decline in vis­i­tor num­bers until it was closed in 1990 and aban­doned for good.

Fort Maunsell in England

Fort Maun­sell is in the Thames Estu­ary region of Eng­land. These struc­tures were built as naval army forts, the main pur­pose of which was to pre­vent air attacks. Sev­en tow­ers are locat­ed in the sea at a depth of 30 meters. The main one is locat­ed in the cen­ter, con­nect­ing with oth­er struc­tures through pas­sages. Fort Maun­sell was aban­doned in 1950, although it was used for a num­ber of oth­er activ­i­ties in the future. Numer­ous species of fish live here as the tow­ers pro­vide them with shel­ter.

To con­tin­ue, vis­it also a selec­tion of 20 aban­doned man­sions, where there is also some­thing to see.