Abandoned village
An abandoned village is a village 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 to epidemic, famine, war, climate change, economic depressions, environmental destruction, or deliberate clearances.
Armenia and Azerbaijan
Hundreds of villages in
Australia
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 of Mary Kathleen, Goldsworthy and Shay Gap, but not in cases such as Wittenoom and Big 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 with ghost town.
Belarus
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).
Belgium
In 1968 in the Belgian region of Doel, a ban on building was implemented so that the Port 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.
China
Many villages in remote parts of the New 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 or new town development. See also walled villages of Hong Kong and list of villages in Hong Kong.
Cyprus
Villages have been abandoned as a result of the
Finland
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.[4]
France
A number of villages, mainly in the north and north western areas of the country, were destroyed during
Germany
There are hundreds of abandoned villages, known as Wüstungen, 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 between Flurwüstungen (farmed areas) and Ortswüstungen (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, the Little Ice Age, the introduction of crop rotation, and war (in Germany, particularly the Thirty Years' War). In later times, the German Empire demolished villages for the creation of training 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.
Hungary
Hundreds of villages were abandoned during the Ottoman wars in the Kingdom 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-day Hungary, except the abandoned villages of Derenk (left in 1943) and Nagygéc (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" was Gyűrűfű 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 like Kán, Tornakápolna, Szanticska, Gorica and Révfalu.
India
One significant event of abandonment in Indian history was due to the
Indonesia
Due to numerous natural disasters in Indonesia, many villages are destroyed, collapsed and abandoned, such as Petobo.
Ireland
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:
- Cannakill, County Offaly
- Clonmines, County Wexford
- Kilcornan, County Galway
- Port, County Donegal
- Rindoon, County Roscommon
- Scattery Island, County Clare
- Slievemore, Achill Island, County Mayo
- Tonaroasty, County Galway
Smaller rural settlements, known as clachans, were also fleed by large numbers during the Great Famine (1845–1850).
In 1940, Ballinahown in West Wicklow, was evacuated for the construction of the Blessington Lakes and Poulaphouca Reservoir.
Territory of the former British Mandate of Palestine
As a consequence of the
In August 2005, Israel evacuated Gush 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.
Malta
Many small villages around Malta were abandoned between the 14th and 18th centuries. They were abandoned for several reasons, including corsair raids (such as the raids of 1429 and 1551), slow population decline, migration to larger villages as well as political changes such as the transfer of the capital from Mdina to Birgu in 1530, and to Valletta in 1571. Many villages were depopulated after a plague 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 as Mellieħa 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 as Giovanni 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]
North Africa
Romania
Many Saxon villages in Transylvania became depopulated or abandoned when their German-speaking inhabitants emigrated to Germany in the 1990s.[citation needed]
Russia
Thousands of abandoned villages are scattered across Russia.[9]
Narmeln, the westernmost point of Russia, was a German village on the Vistula Spit until it became depopulated in 1945 during World War II. The Vistula Spit was split between Poland and the Soviet 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 an exclusion zone.[citation needed]
Spain
Large zones of the mountainous
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 exodus from the rural mountainous areas in Spain rose steeply after
The abandonment of agricultural land use practices drives the natural establishment of forests through
Syria
The
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.[17]
In the 2010s, as a result of the Syrian civil war, many villages in Syria, both in areas under government control and under rebel control, have been depopulated. For example, the town of Darayya in Rural 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 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]
Ukraine
Following the 1986
United Kingdom
Many villages in the United Kingdom have been abandoned throughout history. Some cases were the result of natural events, such as rivers changing course or
Sometimes villages were deliberately cleared: the
In modern times, a few villages have been abandoned due to
Deserted medieval villages
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. If there are three or fewer inhabited houses, the convention is to regard the site as deserted;[21] if there are more than three houses, it is regarded as shrunken.[22] The commonest causes of DMVs include failure of marginal agricultural land and clearance and enclosure following depopulation after the Black 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 is
United States
See also
References
- ^ "Triumph of Tolerance or Vandalism?". Hetq.am. Archived from the original on 15 July 2015. Retrieved 18 May 2015.
- ^ "AZERBAIJAN: VANDALISM AS USUAL". genocide-museum.am.
- ^ Cyprus, Landmine Monitor Report 1999
- ^ Rautio, Samppa (10 July 2022). "Tältä näyttää Vantaan laiton hökkelikylä, jonka kupeessa tapettiin tv-tähden sisko". Iltalehti (in Finnish). Retrieved 16 May 2023.
- ^ K. Scharlau, Beiträge zur geographischen Betrachtung der Wüstungen, Badische Geographische Abteilungen Vol. 10, Freiburg i. Br. 1933.
- ISBN 0-253-36725-5.
- ^ Ross, Victor (26 August 2003). "Hamlets in the 16th century". Times of Malta. Retrieved 17 May 2015.
- ^ Hahs, David Gene (2010). "Medieval Malta: Abandoned Villages, Chapels and Farmhouses". Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations. Paper 4334. Archived from the original on 18 May 2015. Retrieved 17 May 2015.
- ^ "Russia's decaying villages". Al Jazeera. 2 May 2014.
- ^ Pueblos deshabitados - Collado de la Grulla (Teruel)
- ^ Despoblación en Aragon Archived 23 August 2012 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Keenleyside, C., & Tucker, G. (2010). Farmland abandonment in the EU: An assessment of trends and prospects. Institute for European Environmental Policy, London, UK. URL: https://ieep.eu/uploads/articles/attachments/60c46694-1aa7-454e-828a-c41ead9452ef/Farmland_abandonment_in_the_EU_-_assessment_of_trends_and_prospects_-_FINAL_15-11-2010_.pdf?v=63664509740
- .
- PMID 24865979.
- ^ Benayas, José M. Rey. "Rewilding: as farmland and villages are abandoned, forests, wolves and bears are returning to Europe". The Conversation. Retrieved 9 March 2020.
- ^ UNESCO. "Ancient Villages of Northern Syria". Retrieved 30 October 2011.
- ^ Davis, Uri (1983). "The Golan Heights under Israeli Occupation 1967–1981" (PDF).
- ^ Shamaa, Rand. “Contributions from Wealthy Residents Enable Some Returns in Darayya.” Syria Report. Rand Shamaa https://syria-report.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Logo-20-2.jpg, July 16, 2021. https://syria-report.com/hlp/contributions-from-wealthy-residents-enable-some-returns-in-darayya/.
- ^ "Rebel siege of two Shiite-majority Idlib towns ends with total evacuation of residents, militiamen". Syria Direct. 19 July 2018.
- ^ Easdown, Martin (2008). Adventures in Oysterville: The failed oyster and seaside development of Hampton-on-Sea. Michael's Bookshop, Ramsgate. Retrieved 2 March 2010.
- ISBN 9781847732187.
- ISBN 9781847732187.
- ^ Historic England. "Wharram Percy (62053)". Research records (formerly PastScape). Retrieved 15 April 2018.
- ^ Historic England. "Gainsthorpe (63472)". Research records (formerly PastScape). Retrieved 15 April 2018.
- ^ Beresford, Maurice (1983). Lost villages of England. pp. 945, 98, 265, 335, 363.
- ^ The sequence leading to Old Wolverton's abandonment is given at History of Milton Keynes
- Foster, C.W., ed. (1920). Final Concords of the County of Lincoln: 1244-1272. pp. 50–65, 'Lost vills and other forgotten places'. Retrieved 31 December 2010.
Further reading
- Beresford, Maurice(1954) The Lost Villages of England. London: Lutterworth Press
- Christopher Dyer; Richard Jones, eds. (2010). Deserted Villages Revisited. University of Hertfordshire Press. ISBN 978-1-905313-79-2.
- Daniel R. Curtis, Pre-industrial societies and strategies for the exploitation of resources. A theoretical framework for understanding why some settlements are resilient and some settlements are vulnerable to crisis.