A ghost town, deserted city, extinct town, or abandoned city is an abandoned or largely depopulated human settlement that usually contains substantial, visible remaining buildings and infrastructure, such as roads. A town often becomes a ghost town because the economic activity that supported it (usually industrial or agricultural) has failed or ended for any reason (e.g. mining has exhausted a local ore deposit). The town may also have declined because of natural or human-caused disasters such as floods, prolonged droughts, government actions, war, pollution, or nuclear and radiation-related accidents and incidents. The term can sometimes refer to cities, towns, and neighbourhoods that, though still populated, are significantly less so than in past years; for example, those affected by high levels of unemployment and dereliction. The definition of a ghost town is debated amongst writers. Some restrict the term to places deserted for purely economic reasons, while others require visible remains of buildings, and still others allow for a small remaining population. Common causes of abandonment include the exhaustion of natural resources such as minerals or timber, the rerouting of railways or roads, dam construction that isolates or floods a town, armed conflict, forced displacement, and environmental contamination. Epidemics, including the Black Death and the Spanish flu, have also depopulated communities, as has long-term exposure to hazardous materials such as asbestos and lead. Ghost towns are found on every continent, including Antarctica. Africa and the Middle East have towns abandoned because of conflict and the collapse of empires of which they were a part. In Asia, settlements linked to Gulag labour camps were deserted after the camps closed, while in Europe, urbanisation has led to the emptying of rural villages across Bulgaria, Hungary, and Spain. The Americas contain thousands of former mining and railway towns, particularly in the western United States, British Columbia, and Chile's Atacama Desert. Australia and New Zealand have their own legacy of gold rush ghost towns. A few ghost towns have been repopulated through heritage tourism, pilgrimage, or resettlement programmes. Walhalla, Victoria, Australia grew and then shrank correlative to gold mining operations but recently has had a tourism-driven revival. Foncebadón in Spain is slowly recovering thanks in large part to Christian pilgrims stopping there on their way to Santiago de Compostela. Some ghost towns that preserve period-specific architecture have become tourist attractions or filming locations: examples include Kolmanskop in Namibia, Craco in Italy, Pripyat in Ukraine, and Bodie in the United States.
Definition T. Lindsey Baker, author of Ghost Towns of Texas, defines a ghost town as "a town for which the reason for being no longer exists." Some writers restrict the term to settlements that were deserted because they were no longer economically viable, discounting those that were abandoned due to a natural or human-made disaster or other causes. Some believe that any settlement with visible tangible remains should not be called a ghost town; others say, conversely, that a ghost town should contain the tangible remains of buildings. Whether or not the settlement must be completely deserted or may contain a small population is also a matter for debate. Generally, though, the term is used in a looser sense, encompassing any and all of these definitions. American author Lambert Florin defined a ghost town as "a shadowy semblance of a former self."
Reasons for abandonment Factors leading to the abandonment of towns include depleted natural resources, economic activity shifting elsewhere, railroads and roads bypassing or no longer accessing the town, human intervention, disasters, massacres, wars, the shifting of politics or fall of empires, and volcanic eruptions. A town can also be abandoned if it is located within an exclusion zone due to natural or human-made causes.
Armed conflicts
Some towns became deserted when their populations were massacred, deported, or expelled. Examples include Kayaköy, an ancient Greek city abandoned in 1923 as a result of the population exchange between Greece and Turkey, and the original French village at Oradour-sur-Glane which was destroyed on 10 June 1944 when 642 of its 663 inhabitants were killed by a German Waffen-SS company. A new village was built after the war on a nearby site, and the ruins of the original have been maintained as a memorial. The century-old Israeli–Palestinian conflict and Arab-Israeli conflict have caused a lot of ghost towns as well. In Palestine, the Old City of Hebron has been divided into H1, under Palestinian control, and H2, under Israeli military control since 1997. As a result of this division and the presence of Israeli settlers, the H2 area is subject to strict restrictions, shop closures, and checkpoints that have emptied the historic city centre. As for the Gaza Strip, following the Gaza war, most of its cities have been devastated by the Israeli military, Rafah and Khan Yunis in particular. Another Middle Eastern example is Quneitra, located in the Golan Heights: the city has been occupied by Israeli forces in 1967 and entirely destroyed before Israeli withdrawal in June 1974. The United Nations has condemned Israel for Quneitra's destruction, while Israel blamed Syria for not rebuilding the city. Another example is Aghdam, a city in Azerbaijan. Armenian forces occupied Aghdam in July 1993 during the First Nagorno-Karabakh War. The heavy fighting forced the entire population to flee. Upon seizing the city, Armenian forces destroyed much of the town to discourage Azerbaijanis from returning. More damage occurred in the following decades when locals looted the abandoned town for building materials. Azerbaijan recaptured the district in November 2020 under a Russian-brokered ceasefire agreement. In the 21st century, war and conflict continues to bring about the abandonment of human settlements. Examples include villages in Ukraine depopulated and largely destroyed during the Russian invasion such as Bakhmut and AvdiivkaDuring the ongoing Gaza war numerous Palestinian cities in Gaza have been entirely depopulated and razed. Rafah, with a pre-war population of 275,000 has been almost entirely destroyed and the population forcibly transferred.
Economic decline
… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.
