Abandoned village
Abandonment of villages is often related to epidemic, famine, war, climate change, economic depressions, environmental destruction, or deliberate clearances.
In 1988, two years after the Chernobyl disaster, the Belarusian government created the Polesie State Radioecological Reserve, a 1,313 km2 (507 sq mi) exclusion zone to protect people against the effects of radiation.
Twenty-two thousand people lived there in the 96 settlements that were abandoned, including Aravichy and Dzernavichy, and the area has since been expanded by a further 849 km2 (328 sq mi).
[3] On the western edge of Vantaa's Ilola district, there is an illegal village called Simosenkylä, where the houses are mainly dilapidated, some completely abandoned.
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).
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.
As a result of the famine, these large areas were depopulated and returned to jungle for decades to come as the survivors migrated en masse in a search for food.
Notable ghost villages include: Smaller rural settlements, known as clachans, were also fleed by large numbers during the Great Famine (1845–1850).
[7] Of Malta's ten original parishes in 1436, two (Ħal Tartarni and Bir Miftuħ) no longer exist, while others such as Mellieħa were abandoned but rebuilt at a later stage.
[citation needed] Large zones of the mountainous Iberian System and the Pyrenees have undergone heavy depopulation since the early 20th century.
[10] The traditional agricultural practices such as sheep and goat 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 population declined steeply as people emigrated towards the industrial areas of the large cities and the coastal towns where tourism grew exponentially.
[15] The Dead Cities are a group of abandoned villages in Northern Syria dating back to the times of Late Antiquity and the Byzantine Empire.
[16] After the occupation of the Golan Heights by Israel after its victory during the Six-Day War, more than 130,000 Syrians were expelled, and two towns as well as 163 villages were abandoned and destroyed.
[18] Further north in Idlib Governorate, the two villages of Al-Fu'ah and Kafriya for example, were depopulated completely as their Twelver Shia population were evacuated.
[19] Following the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, a 2,600 km2 (1,000 sq mi) zone of exclusion was created and the entire population was evacuated to prevent exposure to radiation.
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.
These include Capel Celyn in Gwynedd, Wales, Mardale Green in the English Lake District and two villages—Ashopton and Derwent—drowned by the Ladybower Reservoir in Derbyshire.
In other cases, such as Tide Mills, East Sussex, Imber and Tyneham, the village lands have been converted to military training areas.
In the United Kingdom, a deserted medieval village (DMV) is a settlement that was abandoned during the Middle Ages, typically leaving no trace apart from earthworks or cropmarks.
[23] The commonest causes of DMVs include failure of marginal agricultural land and clearance and enclosure following depopulation after the Black Death.
