Thames town in China. Secrets of the world

The vision of China's territorial policy towards neighboring countries is difficult to understand at first glance. Over the past decade, the country has outstripped many competitors in the development of the industrial industry and economic potential. Introduced the latest developments in scientific, technical and engineering thought in all spheres of her life. What is confusing, however, is the fact that, despite the apparent success of development, over time, dead cities of china. Having been studying this issue for many years, the Institute of the Far East of the Russian Academy of Sciences asks the question: why does China want to expand its territories? After all, he has already received some islands for the free economic zone, the so-called "resettlement programs" and has a prolongation of the development of backward regions of Russia.

What empty cities in China are known about?

The "Celestial Empire" itself has in reserve over 60 million newly built apartments and houses with all amenities and "state-of-the-art" infrastructure (parks, stadiums), which, if necessary, can accommodate half of the inhabitants of the post-Soviet space. They are distributed among more than 15 uninhabited cities, among which are the main ones:

Xishuan;
Ordos;
Kangbashi;
Tianducheng;
Thames Town.

Xishuan city built in one of the harshest weather conditions in the middle of the desert in Inner Mongolia. It has external similarities with the tragically famous city of Pripyat. With rare exceptions, in any apartment you can see the light - there are only a few people here. But the abandoned dwellings were not looted - in many respects this is the merit of the law on the death penalty in force in the country.

highly developed ghost town of Ordos built in 2001 on land rich in minerals. This is not a previously abandoned village, but huge areas of empty square meters of completely livable housing. Most of this real estate is sold out even at the start of construction, however, the Chinese themselves are not eager to settle there. They know better places to live, such as the village of Bama in southern China, where the natural and climatic conditions, together with the most intense ultra-red rays of the sun on the planet, make it possible to live over 100 years without disease, spending their time in the way they want.

Kangbashi - a large city, which, if there was a population, would have numbered over a million people. It is located near Ordos and was supposed to serve as a zone of urbanization for peasants, however, due to the lack of prospects, the inhabitants were forced to move to more profitable regions. The time after which the city will be at least half populated is unknown.

Tianducheng . The suburb of Guangzhou is famous for its copy of the Eiffel Tower, but attempts to make the region look like Paris have not been successful. Housing prices here are quite high, and the lack of infrastructure completely excludes the possibility of people settling here. A few local residents are trying to survive on a small scale, so vegetable plantations can be seen even near the city's architectural monuments.

Thames Town . Due to the city built in 2006, it was planned to expand the scale of Shanghai, but the designer made a mistake. As a result, the predominant number of buildings were one-story houses, which contradicted the original idea of settling a large number of inhabitants in a new territory. At present, the area is only 10% populated: the Chinese use the erected dwellings only for out-of-town recreation.

China is one of the most densely populated countries and the largest in the world. This gives him a lot of problems, forcing him to resort even to the legislative level. Therefore, even more paradoxical is the fact of the construction of such a number empty cities in China, some of which claim to be metropolitan areas.

Possible reasons for the creation of dead cities

Why do the Chinese allow huge territories to be empty? Are there really no people among the millions who want to fill these cities? There are several explanations for this phenomenon:

Most local residents, especially the younger generation, do not have the financial resources to purchase their own homes. In terms of the ratio of the cost of an apartment to the average salary, it will take an ordinary Chinese about 60 years of work to make such a desired purchase. And those wealthy owners who are able to purchase such objects already have enough real estate to afford living in elite regions. Many refute this opinion, saying that the “heavenly empire” (and now also the construction one) has impressive cash reserves, allowing them to wait for full settlement in abandoned cities in china not to the detriment of the country's capital, even if they are empty for 5-10 years. Maybe so, but here we are talking about the predominant part of the population.
The policy of the authorities who instructed not to settle anyone in these cities. Millions of tourists will bring new buildings and streets to the state of everyday Beijing and Shanghai, further worsening the sanitary conditions of the metropolis. Indeed, it is precisely because of the misunderstanding of culture, way of life and the manner of behavior inherent only to the Chinese that representatives of the Caucasian race prefer to limit themselves to traveling to this country, and not to live here permanently.
Some of the cities in the future may be intended for people of non-traditional sexual orientation. The crux of the problem lies in the birth control law. Using methods of early pregnancy detection, the Chinese began to perform abortions in case of a potential birth of a girl. As a result, there was a shortage of women, and then an overflow of the population with men. Therefore, a large number of homosexuals has become commonplace in the country. It is possible that abandoned cities in the future may be intended for just such a territory of people.
The construction of these cities is an investment of the money supply that has accumulated recently due to the rapid growth of the economy for the subsequent resettlement of their own citizens there: workers of factories, factories and workshops, who will also not neglect mortgage lending.
And finally, the theory of the military concept, which characterizes the true face of the “eastern friend” and returns to understanding the motivation for building the Great Wall of China. Tenements and private houses, as well as infrastructure with underground bunkers for shelter, designed for hundreds of thousands of people. Together with the broad-lane concrete roads heading towards Russia, bearing the load of heavy equipment, they suggest a possible attack from China, and the devastated cities, then, suggest the creation of backup housing for the surviving soldiers after a nuclear counterattack. It is likely that such "threatening" buildings could serve as a lesson on someone else's mistake - the experience of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Summing up this topic, you need to learn one thing: all these cities are multi-billion dollar investments, so they are abandoned only for a while. It is difficult to predict an event that will precede the global settlement of empty territories.

The city of scavengers and the city of circus performers, the city of chess and the city of women, the city-cemetery and the city-dream - you can find thousands of amazing places in our world, but we have found the strangest and most unusual of them..

Manshiyat Nasir, Egypt

In many cities around the world, flea markets and landfills are popular among a certain part of the population, but nowhere else does garbage play such an important role as in the suburbs of Cairo - the Manshiyat Nasir region. Here live people whose main income literally "gets" from daily digging in the garbage thrown out by 10 million residents of Cairo. There is no water, no sewerage, no electricity in the area, and almost every meter of the block is littered with garbage. Local residents specialize in different types of garbage: some "manage" bottles, others - metal, others - something else, and in this way all garbage is painted.

Thames Town, China

Thames Town is an abandoned piece of England in China. The ghost town is located 32 kilometers from Shanghai, and behind its name lies an authentic English style: cobbled roads, pubs and shops with fish and french fries. The city was built in 2006 to attract wealthy Chinese with a Western flair, but real estate prices here have proven too exorbitant, and Thames Town is still empty. It enjoys a certain popularity among newlyweds who do not miss the opportunity to take unusual photos without leaving the country. There are other abandoned "European" cities in China, for example, Tianduchen - Chinese Paris. It even has its own Eiffel Tower, however, on a scale of 1 to 3.

Gibsonton, USA

Traveling circuses and carnivals in America have always been a seasonal phenomenon, while in winter, participants in these shows preferred to go south. A popular place for such "nomads" was the town of Gibsonton in Florida. The love of circus performers for this place can be explained by the soft laws compared to other American states that allow people to keep exotic animals and arrange performances with them. So trainers, acrobats, clowns, and with them just freaks were drawn to Gibsonton. Most of these people did not live up to our times, but people will not soon forget about the unusual glory of Gibsonton.

Zarechny, Russia

In Soviet times, there were many cities in which there were experimental installations and factories for the production of weapons and ammunition. Such places were closed to outsiders, and their location was carefully hidden - take any map from the times of the USSR and compare with modern versions. After the collapse of the Union, some of these cities were opened, but some, including Zarechny, remained closed and classified. The city is located in the Penza region and is a "closed territorial-administrative entity". About 60,000 people live on its territory, and Rosatom is the largest employer, so it is not difficult to guess what kind of production is established there. The city is officially closed to outsiders; walls and barbed wire have been erected around it.

City Chess, Russia

City-Chess, or City of Chess, is a public, business, cultural and residential complex located southeast of Elista, the capital of Kalmykia. In the center of the complex is the Chess Palace with a glass dome. The city of chess is a mecca for connoisseurs of this game: various sculptures on the theme of chess are located throughout the quarter, sometimes important championships and fights are held here. The idea of creating this place belongs to the former president of Kalmykia Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, a big fan of chess. This character is even more unusual than the city itself. Kirsan Ilyumzhinov is sure that he communicated with aliens, and Vanga herself predicted his fate. It was Vanga who foresaw that Kirsan was destined to become the president of Kalmykia and the World Chess Federation (FIDE). Be that as it may, both came true, and if we continue to take Ilyumzhinov's word for it, then even more ambitious events await us: aliens will take us all away from the planet in their spaceships.

Noiva de Cordeyo, Brazil

Admit it, how many times have you heard that the world could do without men? In the southeast of Brazil, they decided to test this in practice. The city of women, or Noiva de Cordeyo, was founded in 1891 by Sanhorenha de Lima shortly after she was expelled from her home due to adultery. Today, about 600 people live in this settlement, almost all of them are women. Only a few of them have husbands who work in another city, 100 kilometers away from their wives. According to the laws of Noiva de Cordeyo, they can only see their spouses on weekends. And although most modern Amazons dream of love and marriage, no one dares to upset the balance of the city.

Neft Dashlary, Azerbaijan

In the late 1940s, oil was discovered in the Caspian Sea, and the USSR built the first oil platform here. Over time, the number of platforms increased, roads, bridges, buildings appeared between them. Thus, a whole residential complex was formed in the middle of the sea. To prevent it from floating away, the platforms are firmly held on to sunken ships and industrial debris lying at the bottom. After the discovery of larger oil fields, the Neft Dashlari gradually fell into disrepair. Today, this place resembles footage from a post-apocalyptic film: some bridges and buildings went under water, all other buildings noticeably dilapidated and fell into disrepair.

An Najaf, Iraq

Wadi al-Salam cemetery is located in the city of An-Najaf. Or is it the city located around the cemetery ... It is difficult to say which of the statements will be more correct. Burials in this place were held daily for more than 1400 years, about five million people found shelter in a huge necropolis. And in our time, every day in the city, right along the sidewalks, they bury about 200 people - because of the military conflicts in Iraq, the number of deaths exceeds all conceivable numbers. Not surprisingly, the resources of the cemetery began to run out.

Auroville, India

Most of the experiments to bring utopias to life ends in the exact opposite of these very utopias. But everywhere there are exceptions, and in this case it is the city of Auroville in India, which was founded in 1968 by Mirra Alfassa. Today, about 2,000 people from all over the world live in Auroville, and no one has “their” home, and no money is valid in the city. The Matrimandir Temple is located in the center of the city. It does not serve any religion and is open to all people. There are no leaders and representatives of authority or law in the city, but the situation is quite calm. There are several small hotels and cafes for tourists. By their very choice to live here, the Aurovilians agreed to contribute to the creation of "a world city in which men and women of all countries will have the opportunity to live in peace and growing harmony, above all beliefs, above all politics and beyond national differences," the city's official website says.

The world in general is very strange. And when it comes to cities, you can’t guess in advance what might be waiting there. We offer an overview of the strangest cities that you can meet while traveling - from a city drowning in garbage to a city where retired circus workers live.

In the suburbs of American cities, many people search garbage dumps in search of things they need, such as pieces of furniture or things that cost money to dispose of. Scavengers, to whom such things are available primarily due to the nature of the work, call such things “mungu”. But in no city does garbage play such an important role in the economy as in Manshiat Nasir, a suburb of Cairo.

Residents of the city collect and sort the garbage of the 10 millionth Cairo. It's a hard life. The city has no running water, sewerage, or electricity, and every inch of the streets is covered in rubbish. The pigs that weren't killed during the swine flu in 2009 took root here in unsanitary conditions. Living in dire poverty, families specialize in a particular type of waste, such as bottles, metal, or anything that can be burned to provide heat.

Strangely, the most overpopulated country in the world has ghost towns, China's zeal for construction far exceeds the demand of the population. Many cities are completely empty, despite the fact that the shortage of new housing is 20%. One such city is Thames Town. The city is located 32 kilometers from Shanghai and was built as a copy of an English trading city with terraced houses, paved streets, bars and bistro cafes.

From the moment of construction until today, the city has been empty. The only thing he is known for is that the newlyweds arrange photo shoots here. In China, this is not the only abandoned city, for example, Tianduchen, a copy of Paris with the Eiffel Tower.

Everyone knows that traveling circuses and amusement parks are seasonal work, and during the winter, workers are forced to travel to the southern regions. One such place in Florida is Gibsonton, a bedroom community in Tampa. "Gibtown" is known for its temporary residents who live apart by their own laws, keep exotic animals and own a huge swing. The Post Office even offers discounts to circus dwarfs. To date, most of the inhabitants of Gibtown have died, and it resembles a city of ghosts.

After World War II, closed cities began to be actively built in Russia, in which the service personnel of a number of defense enterprises lived. They were not even on the map, but today they are becoming known, for example, 60,000 people live in Zarechny. The city's website says that it is a "closed administrative-territorial unit" behind the walls of which the components of nuclear weapons were produced, under the leadership of Rosatom. A limited number of people can enter and exit the city as it is officially closed and there is a strict entry system.

Rennes-le-Château is a small Catholic village located in the French Pyrenees. In 1885, the priest François Berenger Saunier came to the village, where 300 people lived. Soon the priest got really rich and began the reconstruction of the local church of the 11th century, dedicated to Mary Magdalene. One of the strange exhibits was a statue of the devil, who is trying to block the sacred source. At the entrance to the church there was an inscription: "This is a terrible place." It was believed that the priest belonged to a secret society and therefore was rich. Others suspected that he had found the treasure of the crusaders or had secret connections with the Vatican. It was said that the priest knew secrets about the life of Jesus Christ.

This whole story was described in Dan Brown's book "The Da Vinci Code", which attracted tourists who were interested in grave treasures to the village. In this regard, in 2004 the body of the priest was exhumed and reburied in a cement sarcophagus. Real estate prices in the area have risen thanks to the Saunier story. But now many consider this story to be fictional and have nothing to do with the secret of the Holy Grail.

5. Chess city, Elista, Kalmykia. Fantasy of a madman

In Kalmykia, in the steppe, there is a strange landmark - a huge glass building, next to which a California-style quarter is built. This city of Chess, the dream of former President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, is a place of pilgrimage for chess players. In the village there are many sculptures dedicated to the ancient game. For years, major chess championships were held in the city to appease the president's vanity. Today the building is completely empty.

This place is also associated with stories about aliens that Ilyumzhinov met, about which Vanga prophesied to him. The fortuneteller said that he would be the president of Kalmykia and the president of the World Chess Federation. In 1993, Ilyumzhinov became both the first and second. Since that time, he began to dream of building the Country of Chess. Despite the poverty of the republic, money for construction in the amount of 30-50 million dollars appeared. As Ilyumzhinov argued, the Kalmyks have nothing to worry about, since aliens will soon arrive on earth and take everyone to other places.

Many believe that the world would be a much better place if women ruled it. In the southeast of Brazil, in 1891, Signorina de Lima, who was expelled from her community for cheating on her husband, founded the matriarchal city of Noiva do Cordeiro. Now it is home to about 600 women. Only a few have husbands who work in the city of Belo Horizonte, 100 kilometers from this place, and spend time with their wives only on weekends.
The city is surrounded on all sides by the Amazon jungle and fields, which the residents themselves cultivate. Women manage every aspect of their life in the city, from city administration to religious matters and festivals. Many women are deprived of romance in life, as the appearance of a man will disrupt life in the community that has been established for so long. Everyone in the city dreams of falling in love and getting married, but men must be ready to accept their way of life.

When oil was discovered in the Caspian Sea in the late 1940s, the world's first drilling platform was built in the USSR. Over the years, infrastructure has been built to serve the platform and staff: roads, bridges, piers, residential buildings, and even a cinema. At one time, this region was the main supplier of oil, but later other deposits were discovered.

Today, Neft Daslari demonstrates the human attempt to rebuild the city after the apocalypse. Most of the buildings are not accessible, as they are flooded, and the bridges go under water. On Google maps, this area is not even visible. In 1999, an episode of the James Bond film “The world is not enough” was filmed here.

For those who are not superstitious, living near a cemetery is not a bad idea: the neighbors will definitely not ask for a loan! But for the squeamish, life in Najaf is a real nightmare. The city has a huge Wadi Al-Salam cemetery, the largest in the world. Its territory is twice the size of Central Park in New York. 5 million people have been buried in the cemetery over the past 1400 years, and they continue to be buried here today. Families are forced to bury the dead in secret or even under sidewalks, as the space costs $10,000.

Auroville is yet another attempt to bring a utopia to life. The city was created in India in 1968 by Mirra Alfassa. Today it is home to more than 2,000 people from all over the world. No one in the city owns anything, no money, no leader, no rules. Auroville is a city without politics, a city where the main ideas are peace and respect between all nations. The main goal is to unite all mankind. The heart of Auroville is the huge building "Matrimandir", the symbol of Alfassa - a building for prayer and meditation, regardless of religious preferences. It looks like a ball that is covered with golden disks. Auroville is free to visit tourists and guests who can stay in guest houses and eat in restaurants.
Who knows, maybe someday they will turn into and there will be no chance to visit them.

There is very little information about these cities in the media, because this can worsen the situation in the housing market. But despite this, experts at Peking University were able to draw up a map that depicts ghost towns. Nevertheless, we decided to consider seven huge ghost towns in more detail.

Some time ago John Maynard Keynes- the famous economist suggested digging holes and filling them up again - as a cure for the economic downturn.

Chinese government decided to take this advice and develop it to perfection. Thus, ghost towns began to appear throughout the Middle Kingdom, this helps the people of China solve a series of problems: unemployment fell to 4-5% also every year many millions of peasants move to ready-made cities, constantly replenishment of the local budget due to apartment sales.

But the Chinese sages did not take into account the speed of the emergence of new cities. In the created cities, they do not have time to populate the inhabitants and the cities are empty, which evokes thoughts of ghostly castles.

With the advent of the financial crisis, the situation with China's ghost towns worsened as the country began producing cement in huge quantities. This process could not be stopped and therefore the state decided to continue building cities.

Yingkou

Liaoning Province is dependent on mining. So the decision was made to reshape the economy, as this was supposed to make a difference: the Chinese government channeled finance into new industries, and construction companies quickly began to build housing for employees. The city was built very quickly, but it has no inhabitants still.

New Hebi

Hebi is the capital of Henan Province. This city existed thanks to coal mines. But after some time, a new deposit was discovered near Hebi. This prompted the city authorities to create another industrial zone - "New Hebi". For twenty years, no one has mastered the new territory.

thames town

In this town it was decided to reproduce British outback. The city was designed by an American architect Tony Mackay. Real estate was bought up by wealthy people - as a worthy investment. Due to the fact that real estate prices in this town have skyrocketed, this has scared ordinary people away, and at the moment, Thames Town is a place visited by tourists.

Tianducheng

This city was built in Zhejiang province. This town can also be called little Paris. But unfortunately, there are no residents in this city either, despite the fact that a copy of the Eiffel Tower looks almost real.

chengun

Chenggong city was built because of the huge number of students. It was planned to build huge high-rise buildings for hundreds of thousands of residential apartments. Local residents bought up the bulk of the housing as investments, but no one began to live here.

Caofeidian

Caofeidian was to become the first ultra-green city. It was built several hundred kilometers from Beijing. The plan was to use only renewable energy in this city. The goal of the people living in this city is to show how good an environmentally friendly life is. In spite of 90 billion invested in the construction of the city, it is still empty.

Ordos

Ordos is a major center of the Autonomous Republic of Inner Mongolia. The Chinese government decided to expand the city, placing a new district, Kanbashi, nearby. It was expected that about a million people would live in the new district, but at the moment the population of the district is only twenty thousand.

Guys, we put our soul into the site. Thanks for that
for discovering this beauty. Thanks for the inspiration and goosebumps.
Join us at Facebook and In contact with

Every year new cities are built from scratch around the world. However, they do not always find their inhabitants. Hundreds of new residential buildings stand empty, waiting forever for their owners. There are such newborn ghost towns in various parts of the world.

We are in website wondered why this is happening. Take a look at what we found out. And we have prepared the most interesting for you at the end of the article.

1. Kangbashi, China

China ranks first in the world in terms of the number of buildings under construction. Every year new cities are built in China, but despite the high population density, many of these cities remain empty.

One of the alleged reasons is extremely high real estate prices. Another version speaks of insurance in case of war. If Chinese populous cities are attacked from the air, then it will be very expensive to restore them. It is much more profitable and easier to resettle the surviving population in new cities.

China's largest ghost town is located in Ordos County, where a rich coal deposit has been discovered. Thousands of residential buildings have been erected in the city of Kangbashi, as well as all the necessary infrastructure, including an airport, parks, theaters, street sculptures and a museum.

The city has been under construction since 2001 and was designed for 1 million inhabitants. However, now only 2% of the planned population lives in it.

2. Siruenia, Spain

Siruenia back in the early 2000s was a small village in northern Spain. But a few years later, on its outskirts, a whole city was erected in record time, designed for 10 thousand people.

A little over a hundred people now live in Sirwenia, but all the necessary infrastructure is functioning properly.

3. Tianducheng, China

In the east of China, there is a small copy of Paris - the city of Tianducheng. The city was built in the same style, it has its own Champs Elysees, Notre Dame Cathedral and even a smaller copy of the Eiffel Tower, whose height is 108 meters.

The city was erected in 2007 and is designed for 100,000 residents who want to change their rural lifestyle to an urban one.

However, at this stage, "Eastern Paris" is not even a quarter populated. Real estate prices turned out to be unaffordable, as in other similar places in the Middle Kingdom.

Now Tianducheng is more like a large-scale French scenery and therefore fell in love with the newlyweds for wedding photo shoots.

4. Kilamba, Angola

The new city of Kilamba was built by a Chinese investment corporation 30 km from Luanda, the capital of Angola. And he was the embodiment of the election promises of the President of the country, Jose Eduardo dos Santos, who guaranteed the construction of a huge amount of housing in the shortest possible time.

Construction of Kilamba was completed in 2012. 750 high-rise residential buildings designed for 0.5 million people, more than 100 retail premises and dozens of schools were erected in the city.

The total construction cost is estimated at $3.5 billion.

However, despite all efforts, the population of the city is about 1,000 people. It turned out that there is practically no middle class in the country. Most of the population lives below the poverty line, subsisting on $2 a day. And therefore cannot afford to buy an apartment even with the help of a mortgage.

5. Thames Town, China

Another Chinese ghost town, Thames Town, is a smaller copy of London. It occupies an area of only 1 sq. km and is designed for 10 thousand inhabitants.

The settlement of the pseudo-European town was prevented by the economic crisis of 2008, which showed that the layer of wealthy Chinese, on whom the city was designed, is practically absent. Housing in the "Chinese London" could afford very few, so the city is still a ghost.

Now Thames Town, like Tianducheng, is just a gigantic wedding scenery.

6. Masdar, UAE

Eco-city Masdar is being built 17 km from Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates. The project is estimated at $ 22 billion. The project is based on the principle of responsibility, which means a sustainable ecological environment in the city. This will be achieved by providing energy from renewable sources, minimizing carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere, and a system of complete recycling of urban waste.

The city is designed for 50 thousand inhabitants, but now only 300 people have settled there, among whom are mainly students of the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology.

Despite the fact that the project is almost completed, the city is still empty. One of the reasons that prevented settlement was the economic crisis. In addition, a population accustomed to living in luxury may not be prepared to live the responsible principle that underpins Masdar.

7. Kijondong, North Korea

The North Korean village of Kijeongdong is located near the demilitarized zone and is the only settlement that is visible from South Korea. The village was built in the 1950s to promote the high standard of living that awaits all Southerners who cross the border.

Despite the official version that 200 ordinary families live in the village, with the help of modern optics, one can see that the houses are empty boxes without interior spaces. Lights in the village light up in the same parts of the buildings, always at the same time. Sometimes soldiers can be seen in the village, as well as women washing windows, the same for 15 years.

Until 2004, loudspeakers with propaganda texts directed towards the south worked in the village. Realizing the futility of such broadcasts, the North Koreans began to broadcast military marches at full volume for 20 hours a day. Then South Korea launched a response in the form of roaring speakers with South Korean rock music. When the noise became unbearable, the radios on both sides were turned off forever.

Initially, members of the government lived here. According to rumors, they were ordered to move to the new capital within 48 hours, but few complied with the will of the authorities. And therefore, for a long time, Naypyidaw was a deserted place with empty houses and streets. However, now, a dozen years later, it is a vibrant city with an ever-growing population.

Which city surprised you the most? Perhaps you know other new ghost towns? Share in the comments!