WModern ruins are the remains of architecture constructed in the recent past, generally in the most recent century, or since the 19th century. The term is most frequently used by people performing urban exploration of man-made architecture that is abandoned or no longer accessible to the general public, such as structures abandoned through the process of urban decay. Enough documentation on these sites may have been lost over time that this unscientific exploration resembles archaeology of ancient ruins in the methods used to collect information.
WTkvarcheli is a town in Abkhazia. It is situated on the river Ghalidzga (Aaldzga) and a railroad connects it with Ochamchire. Akarmara, an area within the town, is a ghost town with abandoned apartments and factories which became uninhabited in the early 1990s due to the War in Abkhazia (1992-3), and is home to just 35 residents today.
WAlddreu Airfield also known as Cheju-do No. 2 (K-40) Air Base was a former Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service and United States Air Force (USAF) air base on southern Jeju Island. It was mostly returned to farm land from the late 1960s onwards, though the site is still owned and used to some extent by the Republic of Korea Air Force, in particular a grass airstrip known semi-officially as Alddreu Airport.
WThe Arthur de Buyer Coal Mine, or coal mine #11, was one of the major Ronchamp coal mines, which is in the area of the city Magny-Danigon in the French region of Franche-Comté. Digging started in 1894 to ensure the future of the company. The project was directed by Leon Poussigue, director of the company since 1891. He was responsible for organizing the excavation, designing buildings and installing each machine. The seat is named to tribute of Arthur de Buyer, the president since 1876. He retired during the commissioning activity of the mine.
WAtlantis Marine Park is an abandoned theme park built in 1981 in Two Rocks, a small fishing community 60 kilometres (37 mi) north of Perth, the capital of Western Australia. The park was a major feature of Alan Bond's Yanchep Sun City plan. It closed in August 1990 due to financial difficulty.
WAustralia Hall is a former entertainment hall in Pembroke, Malta, which was built by the Australian Branch of the British Red Cross Society in 1915. The building burnt down in 1998, and only its roofless shell remains today, the rebuilding of this site was cancelled.
WBlub, short for Berliner Luft- und Badeparadies, was a water park in the Britz area of Neukölln district in Berlin, Germany. First opened in 1985, it was shut down in 2002 following health concerns, and the 3.5-hectare (8.6-acre) site fell into disrepair. In 2016, the buildings on the site were severely destroyed by fire. Demolition work began in 2020; the site will be developed into a dwelling complex with 638 apartments.
WBoblo Island Amusement Park is an abandoned amusement park which operated from 1898 until its closure on September 30, 1993. Its amusement rides were sold in 1994.
WCelebration City was a theme park located in Branson, Missouri, United States. It was themed after America in the 20th century, with areas based on Route 66, Small-town America in the 1900s, and a beachside boardwalk in the 1920s. As a "sister park" to Herschend Family Entertainment's Silver Dollar City theme park located nearby, It was meant to continue the day where Silver Dollar City's 19th century theming left off. It opened in the afternoon into the evening, with the operating day capped off by a laser and fireworks display.
WDiscovery Island is an 11.5-acre (4.7 ha) island in Bay Lake, Florida. It is located on the property of Walt Disney World in the city of Bay Lake. Between 1974 and 1999, it was an attraction open to guests, who could observe its many species of animals and birds. Disney originally named it Treasure Island, and later renamed it Discovery Island. It currently sits abandoned, but can be seen by any watercraft in Bay Lake. Discovery Island is now the name of one of the lands in Disney's Animal Kingdom.
WDogpatch USA was a theme park located in northwest Arkansas along State Highway 7 between the cities of Harrison and Jasper, an area known today as Marble Falls. It was based on the comic strip Li'l Abner, created by cartoonist Al Capp and set in a fictional village called Dogpatch. The park opened in 1968, and closed in 1993.
WLa Feria de Chapultepec, simply branded as La Feria, was an amusement park in Mexico City, Mexico. Located in the middle of Chapultepec Park near the Constituyentes Metro station, it opened in 1964 as Juegos Mecánicos de Chapultepec and was originally operated by the Mexican government. In 1992 Grupo CIE bought it and changed the name to La Feria Chapultepec Mágico. In 2015, it was bought by Ventura Entertainment and renamed to its last name.
WFort Campbell, also known locally as Il-Fortizza ta' Selmun, is a former fort in Mellieħa, Malta. It was built by the British between 1937 and 1938. It is notable as the most important fortification north of the Victoria Lines, and the last major fortification to be built in Malta. Today, it lies in ruins.
WFreestyle Music Park was a short-lived music themed amusement park built on 55 acres of a 140-acre property located in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. The park was located at the intersection of US 501 and the Intracoastal Waterway. It included part of the former Waccamaw Factory Shoppes in Fantasy Harbour, and used Mall 3 as its headquarters.
WFun Spot Amusement Park & Zoo was an amusement park located in Angola, Indiana. Although it was small in comparison to parks in neighboring states, such as Cedar Point and Michigan's Adventure, it remained one of the largest parks in the region. It also once boasted the only operating roller coaster (Afterburner) with an inversion in the state of Indiana, until Steel Hawg at Indiana Beach opened in 2008. The park closed in 2008.
WThe Haludovo Palace Hotel is an abandoned resort hotel on the Croatian island Krk north of Malinska. The hotel is named after a nearby beach.
WHashima Island (端島), commonly called Gunkanjima, is an abandoned island off Nagasaki, lying about 15 kilometers (9 miles) from the center of the city. It is one of 505 uninhabited islands in Nagasaki Prefecture. The island's most notable features are its abandoned concrete buildings, undisturbed except by nature, and the surrounding sea wall. While the island is a symbol of the rapid industrialization of Japan, it is also a reminder of Japanese war crimes as a site of forced labour prior to and during the Second World War.
WHeritage USA was an American Christian-themed water park, theme park and residential complex in Fort Mill, South Carolina, built by televangelist Jim Bakker and his wife Tammy Faye Messner, founders of PTL Club.
WHoly Land USA is an 18-acre (7.3 ha) theme park in Waterbury, Connecticut, inspired by selected passages from the Bible. It consists of a chapel, stations of the cross, and replicas of catacombs and Israelite villages constructed from cinder blocks, bathtubs, and other discards. The park closed to the public in 1984 and was vandalised. But on September 14, 2014, the site reopened to the public for the first time in 30 years with an inaugural Mass and access to the grounds. The area is open to the general public during daylight hours.
WThe Iversky Monastery was a monastery of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Donetsk, Ukraine. It was built between 1997 and 2001, and was closed in 2014 due to the war in Donbas. The monastery was largely destroyed during the Second Battle of Donetsk Airport in January 2015.
WThe Jerma Palace Hotel is a former four-star hotel in Marsaskala, Malta. It was opened in 1982, and was managed by Corinthia Hotels International. It was the largest hotel in southern Malta until it closed down in 2007. The building was subsequently abandoned, and it has since fallen into a state of disrepair. Plans to demolish the former hotel began in 2016.
WWarner Bros. Jungle Habitat, which was in West Milford, in Passaic County, New Jersey, United States, was a Warner Bros.-owned theme park that opened in the summer of 1972, and closed in October 1976. By November 1972, the park had 500,000 paid visitors. The park contained over 1,500 animals; it consisted of a drive-through section and a walk-through section. The drive-through section was an animal safari park and the walk-through area was called Jungle Junction.
WThe Lake Shawnee Amusement Park is a defunct amusement park in Princeton, West Virginia, United States, located along Lake Shawnee. Opened in 1926, the park operated for 40 years before closing in 1967. It received public attention for at least 2 deaths that occurred on the premises during its operations, which led to urban legends regarding the park being haunted, in an early instance of the Indian burial ground trope. There were a total of 6 deaths.
WLoudoun Castle was a theme park set around the ruins of the 19th century Loudoun Castle near Galston, in the Loudoun area of Ayrshire, Scotland, United Kingdom. The park opened in 1995, and closed at the end of the 2010 season. The park's mascot was Rory the Lion.
WMallows Bay is a small bay on the Maryland side of the Potomac River in Charles County, Maryland, United States. The bay is the location of what is regarded as the "largest shipwreck fleet in the Western Hemisphere" and is described as a "ship graveyard."
WMingulay is the second largest of the Bishop's Isles in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. Located 12 miles (19 km) south of Barra, it is known for its important seabird populations, including puffins, black-legged kittiwakes, and razorbills, which nest in the sea-cliffs, amongst the highest in the British Isles.
WThe National Capitol Columns are a monument in Washington, D.C.'s National Arboretum. It is an arrangement of twenty-two Corinthian columns which were a part of the United States Capitol from 1828 to 1958, placed amid 20 acres (8.1 ha) of open meadow, known as the Ellipse Meadow.
WNorth and South Brother Islands are a pair of small islands located in New York City's East River between the mainland Bronx and Rikers Island. North Brother Island was once the site of the Riverside Hospital for quarantinable diseases but is now uninhabited. The islands had long been privately owned, but were purchased by the federal government in 2007 with some funding from The Trust for Public Land and others; both were given to the City. They were then designated as sanctuaries for water birds.
WThe Packard Automotive Plant is a former automobile-manufacturing factory in Detroit, Michigan, where luxury cars were made by the Packard Motor Car Company and later by the Studebaker-Packard Corporation.
WPripyat, also known as Pryp'yat' or Prypiat is a ghost city in northern Ukraine, near the Ukraine–Belarus border. Named after the nearby river Pripyat, the town was founded on 4 February 1970, as the ninth "atomgrad", a type of closed town in the Soviet Union, to serve the nearby Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. It was officially proclaimed a city in 1979 and had grown to a population of 49,360 by the time it was evacuated on the afternoon of 27 April 1986, the day after the Chernobyl disaster.
WThe Pripyat amusement park is an abandoned amusement park located in Pripyat, Ukraine. It was to have its grand opening on 1 May 1986, in time for the May Day celebrations, but these plans were cancelled on 26 April, when the Chernobyl disaster occurred a few kilometers away. Several sources report that the park was opened for a short time on 27 April before the announcement to evacuate the city was made, and one site shows photos of the amusement park in operation. Theories that the park was hurriedly opened in the aftermath of the accident to distract Pripyat residents from the unfolding disaster nearby seem to be substantiated by video showing that some of the rides were never fully completed. It is more likely and generally held that the video was taken in winter, due to clothing worn, and it was a test. Considering the lack of panic at the time of evacuation, there was no need to distract people. In any case, the park—and its Ferris wheel in particular—have become a symbol of the Chernobyl disaster.
WThe South Beach Branch, also called the East Shore Sub-Division, is an abandoned branch of the Staten Island Railway in New York City, which operated along Staten Island's East Shore from Clifton to Wentworth Avenue. This 4.1-mile (6.6 km) double-tracked branch left the Main Line at 40°37′08″N 74°04′18″W, south of the Clifton station, and lay to the east of the Main Line.
WRose Island was an abandoned amusement park near Charlestown, Indiana, situated on a peninsula created by Fourteen Mile Creek emptying into the Ohio River. It was a recreational area known as Fern Grove in the 1880s, mostly used as a church camp. It was so named due to the many ferns that grew there. The Louisville and Jeffersonville Ferry Company acquired it and developed it in order to increase the use of its ferry business. As Fern Grove it thrived on church picnics and family outings.
WRuins photography, sometimes called ruin porn, is a recent movement in photography that takes the decline of the built environment as its subject. While "ruins" may be broadly defined as the remnants of human achievement, "ruins photography" refers specifically to the capture of urban decay in the post-industrial areas of the world. Ruins photography catalogues the abandonment and decline of cities most of all, and has sparked conversations about the role of art in various urban renewal, restoration, and conservation projects in cities throughout the globe.
WSt. Peter's Seminary is a former Roman Catholic seminary near Cardross, Argyll and Bute, Scotland. Designed by the firm of Gillespie, Kidd & Coia, it has been described by the international architecture conservation organisation DOCOMOMO as a modern "building of world significance". It is one of only 42 post-war buildings in Scotland to be listed at Category A, the highest level of protection for a building of "special architectural or historic interest". It has been abandoned since 1987, and is currently in a ruinous state. In July 2020, the site was gifted to the Kilmahew Education Trust Ltd who plan to reinstate the educational elements of the Seminary Complex after a process of conservation and restoration. The wider Kilmahew Estate is to be brought back to its former glory with new landscaping and features but is currently closed to the public due to safety concerns.
WSix Flags New Orleans is an abandoned theme park located near the intersection of Interstate 10 and Interstate 510 in New Orleans. It first opened as Jazzland in 2000, and a leasing agreement was established with Six Flags in 2002 following the previous operator's bankruptcy proceedings. Six Flags invested $20 million in upgrades, and the park reopened as Six Flags New Orleans in 2003. It was closed eight days prior to Hurricane Katrina making landfall on August 29, 2005, and due to serious damage from flooding, the park never reopened.
WSpreepark is a former amusement park in the north of the Plänterwald in the Berlin district Treptow-Köpenick. It was also known by its earlier name Kulturpark Plänterwald Berlin.
WThe Vallée des Rouets is a part of the valley of the Durolle river, principally situated on the land of Thiers, in the French department of Puy-de-Dôme in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region. The area is known for its long artisanal past, as the inhabitants have made use of the locomotive power of the Durolle River since the Middle Ages. The beginning of the 20th century marked the closure of most of the water-powered mills in the valley in favor of the production of cutlery, mainly situated in the Vallée des Usines, located downstream.
WVarosha is an abandoned southern quarter of the Cypriot city of Famagusta. Before 1974, it was the modern tourist area of the city. Its inhabitants fled during the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974, when the city of Famagusta came under Turkish control, and it has remained abandoned ever since. As of 2021, the quarter continues to be uninhabited; buildings have decayed, and, in some cases, their contents have been looted over the years; some streets have been overgrown with vegetation; and the quarter is generally described as a ghost town. Entry is partly open to the public.
WVilla Epecuén was a tourist village in Buenos Aires Province, Argentina, on the eastern shore of Laguna Epecuén, about 7 kilometres (4.3 mi) north of the city of Carhué. Developed in the early 1920s, Epecuén was accessible from Buenos Aires by train. The Sarmiento Railway line served Villa Epecuén station, while the Midland Railway and the Buenos Aires Great Southern Railway carried passengers to nearby Carhué station. Tourism was developed by an Englishman after taking the land on lease. He marketed the lake as having healing properties, hiring Italian scientists to bolster the claim. At its height, Villa Epecuén could accommodate at least 5,000 visitors.
WWestchester Avenue is a former railroad station located in the borough of the Bronx in New York City, partially suspended over Amtrak's busy Northeast Corridor line. It was built in 1908 with rich terra cotta detailing to a design by Cass Gilbert, who would later employ similar terra cotta detailing in his 1910 design for the Woolworth Building. Train service to the station ceased in 1937, and as of 2014 the station was a ruin in poor condition.
WWilliams Grove Amusement Park is an abandoned amusement park near Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. The park operated from 1850 until 2005.
WYongma Land is a small abandoned amusement park in Yongmasan, Jungnang District, Seoul, South Korea. It closed due to low profits, but is open to anyone for 10,000 won per day. It is now a hot spot for cosplay and various other trends.