Abandoned Places

Explore 60 beautiful and hunting abandoned places from around the world!

From Antarctic bays bound by a frozen sea to the most parched deserts on earth, from monsoon-drenched estuaries to wind-whipped Atlantic islands, there are places that humans have settled, thrived in, and then abruptly departed form. These abandoned places lie deep underground, on the highest mountains tops, in the middle of our biggest cities, in our suburbs, on our doorsteps. They are all around us, but most of the time we pass them by. Yet when we take the time to look, to explore, we find new worlds that are endlessly fascinating. What brought people to this place? How did they survive? What was life here really like? Perhaps most intriguingly of all - why did they leave?

That questions is answered in myriad ways. War. Natural disaster. Economic pressure. Fashion. Political gamesmanship. Greener grass elsewhere. Human foolishness. Every derelict settlement is an empire in miniature that tells its own story of glorious rise and humble fall. Here we present sixty of those intriguing tales, illustrated with photographs that perfectly capture the haunting echoes of lives long forgotten. If there can be no true beauty without decay, then these abandoned places are, in their way, some of the mos beautiful places on earth.