Anabandoned village is avillage that has, for some reason, been deserted. In many countries, and throughout history, thousands of villages have been deserted for a variety of causes. Abandonment of villages is often related toepidemic,famine,war,climate change,economic depressions,environmental destruction, or deliberate clearances.
Hundreds of villages inNagorno-Karabakh were deserted following theFirst Nagorno-Karabakh War. Between 1988 and 1993, 400,000 ethnicAzeris, andKurds fled the area and nearly 200 villages in Armenia itself populated by Azeris and Kurds were abandoned by 1991. Likewise, nearly 300,000 Armenians fled from Azerbaijan between 1988 and 1993, including 50 villages populated by Armenians in Northern Nagorno Karabakh that were abandoned. Some of the Armenian settlements andchurches outsideArmenia and theNagorno-Karabakh Republic have either been destroyed or damaged including those inNakhichevan.[1][2]
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In Australia, the government requires operators of mining towns to remove all traces of the town when it is abandoned. This has occurred in the cases ofMary Kathleen,Goldsworthy andShay Gap, but not in cases such asWittenoom andBig Bell. Some towns have been lost or moved when dams are built. Others when the settlement was abandoned for any number of other reasons such as recurring natural disasters such as bushfires or changed circumstances. In Australia, an abandoned settlement that has infrastructure remaining is synonymous withghost town.
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In 1988, two years after theChernobyl disaster, the Belarusian government created thePolesie State Radioecological Reserve, a 1,313 km2 (507 sq mi) exclusion zone to protect people against the effects ofradiation. Twenty-two thousand people lived there in the 96 settlements that were abandoned, includingAravichy andDzernavichy, and the area has since been expanded by a further 849 km2 (328 sq mi).
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In 1968 in the Belgian region ofDoel, a ban on building was implemented so that thePort of Antwerp could expand. Then an economic crisis occurred and this plan for expansion was halted. Then in 1998, another plan for the expansion of the Port of Antwerp was released and most of the inhabitants fled the town.
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Many villages in remote parts of theNew Territories,Hong Kong, usually in valleys or on islands, have been abandoned due to inaccessibility. Residents go to live in urban areas with better job opportunities. Some villages have been moved to new sites to make way for reservoirs ornew town development. See alsowalled villages of Hong Kong andlist of villages in Hong Kong.
Villages have been abandoned as a result of theCyprus dispute. Some of these Cypriot villages are reported to be landmined.[3]
On the western edge ofVantaa'sIlola district, there is an illegal village calledSimosenkylä, where the houses are mainly dilapidated, some completely abandoned.[4]
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A number of villages, mainly in the north and north western areas of the country, were destroyed duringWorld War I andWorld War II. A percentage of them were rebuilt next to the original sites, with the original villages remaining in aruined state.
There are hundreds of abandoned villages, known asWüstungen, in Germany.Kurt Scharlau (a geographer) categorized the different types in the 1930s, making distinctions between temporary and permanent Wüstung, settlements used for different purposes (farms or villages), and the extent of abandonment (partial or total).[5] His scheme has been expanded, and has been criticized for not taking into account expansion and regression. Archaeologists frequently differentiate betweenFlurwüstungen (farmed areas) andOrtswüstungen (sites where buildings formerly stood). The most drastic period of abandonment in modern times was during the 14th and 15th centuries—before 1350, there were about 170,000 settlements in Germany, and this had been reduced by nearly 40,000 by 1450.[6] As in Britain, the Black Death played a large role in this, as did the growth of large villages and towns, theLittle Ice Age, the introduction ofcrop rotation, and war (in Germany, particularly theThirty Years' War). In later times, theGerman Empire demolished villages for the creation oftraining grounds for the military.As a result of the Potsdam conference the southern region of "east Prussia" became "Kaliningrad oblast" with the majority of villages permanently destroyed after the German population had been forced out. The same scenario applied to villages of ethnic Germans at the prewar borders of the now Czech Republic and Germany or Austria respectively as all ethnic Germans were expelled from the then Czechoslovakia.
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Hundreds of villages were abandoned during theOttoman wars in theKingdom of Hungary in the 16th–17th centuries. Many of them were never repopulated, and they generally left few visible traces. Real ghost towns are rare in present-dayHungary, except the abandoned villages ofDerenk (left in 1943) andNagygéc (left in 1970). Due to the decrease in rural population beginning in the 1980s, dozens of villages are now threatened with abandonment. The first village officially declared as "died out" wasGyűrűfű at the end of the 1970s, but it was later repopulated as an "eco-village". Sometimes depopulated villages were successfully saved as small rural resorts likeKán,Tornakápolna,Szanticska,Gorica andRévfalu.
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One significant event of abandonment in Indian history was due to theBengal famine of 1770. About ten million people, approximately one-third of the population of the affected area, are estimated to have died in the Bengal famine of 1770. Regions where the famine occurred included especially the modern Indian states ofBihar andWest Bengal, but the famine also extended intoOdisha andJharkhand as well as modernBangladesh. Among the worst affected areas wereBirbhum andMurshidabad inBengal, andTirhut,Champaran andBettiah in Bihar. As a result of the famine, these large areas were depopulated and returned to jungle for decades to come as the survivors migrateden masse in a search for food. Many cultivated lands were abandoned—much of Birbhum, for instance, returned to jungle and was virtually impassable for decades afterwards. From 1772 on, bands of bandits and thugs became an established feature of Bengal, and were only brought under control by punitive actions in the 1780s.
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Due to numerous natural disasters in Indonesia, many villages are destroyed, collapsed and abandoned, such asPetobo.
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Multiple Irish villages have been abandoned during the Middle Ages or later:Oliver Goldsmith's poem "The Deserted Village" (1770) being a famous commentary on rural depopulation. Notable ghost villages include:
Smaller rural settlements, known asclachans, were also fled by large numbers during theGreat Famine (1845–1850).
In 1940, Ballinahown in West Wicklow, was evacuated for the construction of the Blessington Lakes and Poulaphouca Reservoir.
As a consequence of the1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight during the1948 Palestine war, around 720,000Palestinian Arabs were displaced, leaving around 400 Palestinian Arab towns and villages depopulated in what becameIsrael. In addition, several Jewish communities in what became theWest Bank andGaza Strip were also depopulated.
In August 2005, Israel evacuatedGush Katif and all other Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip. Some structures in these settlements, including greenhouses and synagogues, were left standing after the withdrawal.
Many small villages aroundMalta were abandoned between the 14th and 18th centuries. They were abandoned for several reasons, including corsair raids (such as the raids of1429 and1551), slow population decline, migration to larger villages as well as political changes such as the transfer of the capital fromMdina toBirgu in 1530, and toValletta in 1571. Many villages were depopulated after aplague epidemic in 1592–93.[7]
Of Malta's ten original parishes in 1436, two (Ħal Tartarni and Bir Miftuħ) no longer exist, while others such asMellieħa were abandoned but rebuilt at a later stage. The existence of many of the other villages is known only from militia lists, ecclesiastical or notarial documents, or lists of lost villages compiled by scholars such asGiovanni Francesco Abela.
The villages usually consisted of a chapel surrounded by a number of farmhouses and other buildings. In some cases, such as Ħal-Millieri and Bir Miftuħ, the village disappeared but the chapel still exists.[8]
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Oases and villages inNorth Africa have been abandoned due to the expansion of theSahara desert.
Due to aging of population and immigration, a lot of villages inRomania, especially inTransylvania and notably villages of national heritage, became or are on the way to become depopulated. On a particular course, a lot of villages also became depopulated because of the migration of ethnicTransylvanian Saxons during thecommunist era of Romania. Notable examples includeLindenfeld, inCaraș-Severin county and Tomnatec and Cioclovina, inHunedoara county.
Thousands of abandoned villages are scattered across Russia.[9]
Narmeln, thewesternmost point of Russia, was a German village on theVistula Spit until it became depopulated in 1945 duringWorld War II. The Vistula Spit was split betweenPoland and theSoviet Union after the war, with Narmeln as the only settlement on the Soviet side. Narmeln was never repopulated as the Soviet side was made into anexclusion zone.[citation needed]
Large zones of the mountainousIberian System and thePyrenees have undergone heavydepopulation since the early 20th century. InSpain there are manyghost towns scattered across mountain areas especially inTeruel Province.[10]
The traditional agricultural practices such assheep andgoat rearing on which the village economy was based were not taken over by the local youth after the lifestyle changes that swept over rural Spain during the second half of the 20th century.The exodus from the rural mountainous areas in Spain rose steeply afterGeneral Franco'sPlan de Estabilización in 1959. Thepopulation declined steeply as people emigrated towards the industrial areas of the large cities and the coastal towns where tourism grew exponentially.[11]
The abandonment of agricultural land use practices drives thenatural establishment of forests throughecological succession in Spain.[12] This spontaneous forest establishment has several consequences for society and nature, such as increase of fire risk and frequency andbiodiversity loss.[13] Regarding biodiversity loss, research findings from Mediterranean showed that this is very site-dependent.[14] More recently, the abandonment of land is also discussed by some as an opportunity forrewilding in rural areas in Spain.[15]
TheDead Cities are a group of abandoned villages in Northern Syria dating back to the times ofLate Antiquity and theByzantine Empire. They are aWorld Heritage Site.[16]
After the occupation of theGolan Heights byIsrael after its victory during theSix-Day War, more than 130,000 Syrians were expelled, and two towns as well as 163 villages were abandoned and destroyed.[17]
In the 2010s, as a result of theSyrian civil war, many villages in Syria, both in areas undergovernment control and underrebel control, have been depopulated. For example, the town ofDarayya inRural Damascus Governorate, with a pre-war population of 225,000 was completely depopulated during the war, and since its return to government control in 2016, only between 10% and 30% of its population have returned.[18] Further north inIdlib Governorate, the two villages ofAl-Fu'ah andKafriya for example, were depopulated completely as theirTwelver Shia population were evacuated.[19]
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Following the 1986Chernobyl disaster, a 2,600 km2 (1,000 sq mi)zone of exclusion was created and the entire population was evacuated to prevent exposure toradiation. Since then, alimited number of people have been allowed to return: 197 lived in the zone in 2012, down from 328 in 2007 and 612 in 1999. However, all of the villages and the main city of the region,Pripyat, are falling into decay. The only lived in settlement isChernobyl which houses maintenance staff and scientists working at thenuclear power plant, although they can only live there for short periods of time.
Al Mudam abandoned village was built in the 1970s and was developed as part of the government's modernization program, specifically targeting neighbouring tribes as a public housing project. With the intention of recreating the landscape during the unification of the seven emirates, the village includes 12 houses and a mosque, The rapid modernization of neighbouring states in the 1990s is cited as a reason for residents leaving. However, the exact reasons behind the mysterious exodus from the region remain uncertain.[20]
Many villages in the United Kingdom have been abandoned throughout history. Some cases were the result of natural events, such as rivers changing course orsilting up, or coastal and estuarineerosion.
Sometimes villages were deliberately cleared: theHarrying of the North caused widespread devastation in the winter of 1069–1070. In the 12th and 13th centuries, many villages were removed to make way formonasteries, and in the 18th century, it became fashionable for land-owningaristocrats to live in large mansions set in large landscaped parklands. Villages that obstructed the view were removed, although by the early 19th century it had become common to provide replacements.
In modern times, a few villages have been abandoned due toreservoirs being built and the location being flooded. These includeCapel Celyn in Gwynedd, Wales,Mardale Green in the EnglishLake District and two villages—Ashopton andDerwent—drowned by theLadybower Reservoir in Derbyshire. In other cases, such asTide Mills, East Sussex,Imber andTyneham, the village lands have been converted to military training areas. Villages inNorthumberland have been demolished to make way foropen-cast mines.Hampton-on-Sea was abandoned due tocoastal erosion thought to have been exacerbated by the building of apier.[21] Several other villages had their populations relocated to make way for military installations; these include a group of villages in the vicinity ofThetford,Norfolk, which were emptied in 1942 to allow for the establishment of theStanford Training Area, which incorporates the villages as part of the facility's training areas.
In the United Kingdom, a deserted medieval village (DMV) is a settlement that was abandoned during theMiddle Ages, typically leaving no trace apart fromearthworks orcropmarks. If there are three or fewer inhabited houses, the convention is to regard the site as deserted;[22] if there are more than three houses, it is regarded as shrunken.[23] The commonest causes of DMVs include failure of marginal agricultural land and clearance and enclosure following depopulation after theBlack Death. The study of the causes of each settlement's desertion is an ongoing field of research.
England has an estimated 3,000 DMVs. One of the best known isWharram Percy inNorth Yorkshire, where extensive archaeological excavations were conducted between 1948 and 1990. Its ruined church and former fishpond are still visible.[24] Some other examples areGainsthorpe in Lincolnshire,[25][26] andOld Wolverton inMilton Keynes.[27]
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