Hashima is one of the most remarkable of a series of hundreds of deserted Japanese islands. Once a thriving coal-mining city its population density grew to be the highest on the planet, with workers crammed vertically in ever-growing buildings and walked daily through ever-narrowing streets. Following a drop in coal production the entirely island amazingly shut down though most of its structures still stand. Currently the island is being renovated to create safe tourist paths through the rubble and tilting buildings but for now daring (and illegal) exploration is possible only by hiring a willing private boat driver to take a look.

Abandoned Town of Centralia, Pennsylvania

No list of abandoned cities and deserted towns can be complete without some discussion of one of the strangest and most infamous example: Centralia. This once-thriving town had a mine fire decades ago … but it never went out. Warning signs that something was still wrong included: smoking highways, heated underwater gas tanks and person-swallowing sinkholes. Over time most of the town’s residents have moved on though a few insist on staying despite the slowly-spreading and still-burning fire that creeps below.

Abandoned Flooded City of Quabbin, Massachusetts

The Quabbin Reservoir is the now the largest body of water in Massachusetts. However, the area it now occupies once had four small towns and a network of roads and rail tracks running through it – all of which were flooded or displaced by the filling of the area with water. While some public structures, memorials and graves were moved out of the way many still sit today at the bottom of this body of water. Some nearby structures sit above the waterline but were abandoned without the adjacent buildings that sustained their use.