The ghost towns at the edge of the world that broke record titles – without people

Found on every continent, ghost towns are a sobering and fascinating demonstration of how humans give life to our communities – and how easily that life can be taken away.

Though many tend to think of ghost towns as the dilapidated wooden buildings framing a phantom Main Street abandoned by 1800s settlers – such as after a gold mine closes or a plague devastates a community – ghost towns are actually found in every continent, and the definition of the term encompasses many types of lost civilizations.

Referring to towns that are abandoned by almost or all of its residents, these communities are usually left because of economic or resource issues, natural disasters, extreme climates, war and other armed conflicts, pollution, and nuclear disasters.

Their buildings might have been left intact, with chilling reminders of hastily-abandoned lives like forgotten children’s toys or food in pantries, while some only have a few traces of civilization left. 

These abandoned towns are filled with a sense of mystery and nostalgia, and are sometimes visited by tourists or used as film sets because of how they preserve the structures and lives of historic cities. Consequently, some ghost towns are well-known in public memory, such as Chernobyl and Pripyat in Ukraine, or Pompeii in Italy. If it is possible for people to visit the sites, they are often preserved in a state of “arrested decay”, or how they looked when they were abandoned.

There are many ghost stories with complicated and tragic histories in the world, three of which obtained Guinness World Records titles for their stories. Keep reading to find out more about the largest gold-mining ghost town, the largest medical ghost town, and the most northerly ghost town – and check out the 2026 edition of the Guinness World Records book to learn more about these abandoned communities. 

Largest gold-mining ghost town - Bodie, California

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Bodie, California, USA is an authentic Wild West ghost town, created in 1859 after a profitable vein of minerals was found nearby. It started as a small mining camp, until a group of prospectors struck gold – eventually naming the town after one of their friends, Wakeman “W.S.” Bodey, who died in November during a blizzard on a supply trip.

After the Standard Company found a rich gold deposit in the region in 1877, the camp erupted into a ‘boom town’, with thousands of miners, mill workers, and adventurers descending on the area in search of a good living or a quick buck.

At its peak, Bodie had about 7,000 - 8,000 inhabitants and over 2,000 buildings. They had all the amenities and “houses of ill-repute” needed in a notorious Wild West town at that time, such as: some 65 saloons, a red light district, a Wells Fargo bank, a union, multiple newspapers, and a city jail. The town even had a Chinatown district and a Taoist temple, as several hundred Chinese residents and labourers lived and worked there.

The town began to decline after the area’s mineral wealth depleted in 1881, and miners began to move to more profitable sites nearby as speculation in mining stock outpaced the mines’ output. Even though there was still money in the mines, which caused miniature ‘booms’, most residents knew resources were limited, and they either left or stayed in the (now more family-friendly) town. 

By 1910, the town's population dwindled to 698, as whatever industry remained began to leave – and in the next decade that number dropped to 128. Bodie was effectively abandoned during WWII as federal regulations halted mining, and it was designated a California State Historic Park in 1962.

Yet the decline of Bodie as a living, working mining town went hand in hand with its growing fame as an authentic wild-west “ghost town”. It was first described using that phrase in 1915, which is one of the earliest known uses of the term in print, and it became a must-see destination during the early-to-mid-20th century, when American culture was dominated by romanticized depictions of the “wild west” – including legends and tales that originated in Bodie itself.

Now, Bodie is a popular tourist destination, with about 200 original buildings remaining in California’s official state gold rush ghost town. Thanks to the efforts of the Bodie Foundation, visitors can still see the gold mills, and visit the interiors of the houses as they were abandoned – including left behind food and dishware (though it's not likely you’ll find any hidden gold).

Largest medical ghost town - Kalaupapa, Hawai’i

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The largest medical ghost town is located on the island of Molokai in Hawai’i, USA, to house native Hawaiians infected with Hansen’s disease (leprosy), who were forcibly exiled to this remote peninsula under a law that was in place from 1865 to 1969.

Hawaiians were first introduced to Hansen’s disease by European sailors in the early 1800s, and the disease became shockingly widespread by the middle of the century. Despite its historic reputation, Hansen's disease isn't particularly contagious – but the indigenous population of Hawai’i had little natural immunity. Eventually, the development of drugs eased its progression in the early 20th century, especially after an antibiotic was created in 1969, and the disease was renamed after the physician who discovered the strain in an attempt to move past the stigma of the illness. 

Nonetheless, a significant portion of the native population was impacted by the existence of this disease. There are no detailed figures from this time, but data from 1990 – decades after the introduction of the mandatory quarantine – reports that around 0.7% of the island's population had Hansen’s, rising to 2.5% among native Hawaiians. This was much higher than the rate of the disease in other countries at the time, so King Kamehameha V signed and approved the "Act to Prevent the Spread of Leprosy" on 3 January 1865, which introduced a policy of mandatory quarantine. 

All native Hawaiians with the disease, regardless of age, were sent to this segregated settlement built on a remote island accessible only by boat, where they were registered as “inmates” by the US government and treated in abysmal conditions. The first exiles arrived on 6 January 1866, and once they arrived, they were prohibited from leaving for life.

Of course, native Hawaiians rebelled against these inhumane conditions – especially as the enforcement of these policies fell to the agents of the Board of Health, who were almost all European settlers, while the afflicted people they targeted were almost all native Hawaiians. Several Board of Health agents were killed during attempts to arrest people with Hansen's disease, and one group's attempts to resist forced deportation in 1893 escalated into an armed rebellion that only ended when the army was called in.

This notable case is the Leper War on Kauai, an incredible story featuring a family with Hansen’s disease who successfully fought back against the military who tried to take them to Molokai. 

But not everyone was so lucky, and while the exile was enforced between 1866-1969, at its peak it was estimated that over 800 men, women, and children lived on the island. Over time, they built themselves a community, with members of the colony joining the Health Board to run the settlement, and erecting hospitals, schools, and churches.

Image credit: Hawai’i State Archives

After treatments for Hansen’s disease became more common, Hawai’i repealed the exile law in 1969, and many residents left – although their relationship with the island remains complicated. Many came when they were children, or created families, and some historians estimate that almost every woman on the island was pregnant at one point. For some, this was home.

So although now it is estimated that only six original residents remain on Kalaupapa, there are ongoing debates about what to do with the island once the last patient dies. Some want the land opened publicly since it is a National Park, while others have conflicting opinions on what tourism (even for memorial purposes) could do for the ghost town. Many families still have connections with the land and want to return, which is complicated by the historic relationship native Hawaiians have with the land – as it is one of the last undeveloped islands in the archipelago. 

Most northerly ghost town - Pyramiden, Svalbard, Norway

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On the opposite side of the world lies the most northerly ghost town – Pyramiden, Norway, which was a coal-mining company town owned by Arktikugol (Russia) that had a peak of 2,500 inhabitants in the 1960s. The last resident left in 1998, and now Pyramiden, located at 78.4 degrees north on the island of Spitsbergen, is an old Soviet mining town frozen in time.

After finding a coal vein nearby, Swedish prospectors founded the town in 1910, and named it after a pyramid-shaped mountain close to the site. At the time, the legal status of the Svalbard Islands was somewhat ambiguous, which meant that prospectors from various countries – including Sweden, Norway, Britain and the Russian Empire – were staking claims in the area. In 1927, the Swedish sold the Pyramiden mine to the Soviet Russki Grumant mining company (later renamed Arktikugol), which still owns both the town and the inactive mine.

The company grew the size of the town substantially, adding industrial centres, apartment complexes, a school, gymnasium and shops. The town was built around a central square/parade ground, overlooked by a statue of Vladimir Lenin, and it served as both a working settlement and a peculiar prestige project for the Soviet Union – a model town built on the territory of a western nation.

Image credit: Alamy

Unfortunately, after the fall of the Soviet Union, the mine quickly began to cost more to run than what it made in profits. The town also suffered a serious tragedy on 29 August 1996, when a charter plane bringing families back from a trip to Russia crashed on a nearby hillside, resulting in 141 deaths – a significant proportion of the close-knit community's population.

When the opportunity arose for the residents to relocate, most did – and the mine was officially closed down on 31 March 1998. The last permanent resident left on 10 October that same year.

But in 2007, a small hotel opened again for travellers willing to trek to an abandoned city at the edge of the world.

Header image: Alamy