Atlas of Improbable Places

DREAM CREATIONS
FLEVOPOLDER
The region reclaimed from the sea
 
ZHELEZNOGORSK
Former closed Soviet city
 
FREE CHRISTIANIA
Squatter-city
 
AUROVILLE
1960s utopian city
 
SLAB CITY
The squatter metropolis
 
PORTMEIRION
The Village
 
ZVYOZDNY GORODOK
Star City
 
HEARST CASTLE
Randolph Hearst’s Xanadu-esque home
 
DESERTED DESTINATIONS
TEUFELSBERG
Abandoned U.S. spy station
 
PRESIDIO MODELO
Cuba’s most notorious former penitentiary
 
BATTLESHIP ISLAND
Deserted mining settlement
 
NO MAN’S LAND FORT
A long shunned coastal bulwark
 
THE LOST CITY OF SAN JUAN PARANGARICUTIRO
Abandoned after the eruption of 1943
 
HUMBERSTONE AND SANTA LAURA
Redundant saltpetre works
 
WONDERLAND
Abandoned Disneyland-style theme park
 
ORADOUR-SUR-GLANE
Village left abandoned since the Second World War
 
MUYNAK
Drained port
 
WITTENOOM
Asbestos-ridden industrial town
 
ANI, KARS
Ruins of one-time capital of the Armenian Empire
 
CONCRETE CITY
Garden city of the anthracite region
 
VAROSHA
Abandoned tourist resort
 
ARCHITECTURAL ODDITIES
MARYHILL STONEHENGE
Concrete Stonehenge
 
SPIJKENISSE
The ‘real’ fictional euro bridges
 
KABAYAN
The Ibaloi mummy caves
 
SANTURIO MADONNA DELLA CORONA
Chapel hangs midway down a sheer cliffside
 
LONDON BRIDGE, LAKE HAVASU
The 1831 London Bridge
 
THE AFRICAN RENAISSANCE MONUMENT
Controversial symbol of independence
 
TEN COMMANDMENTS MOUNTAIN
The Fields of the Wood
 
FLOATING WORLDS
THE PALM 105
An artificial island paradise
 
THE KINGDOM OF REDONDA
Uninhabited Caribbean island
 
POVEGLIA ISLAND
Former plague quarantine island
 
GREAT BLASKET
Uninhabited since 1954
 
HOLLAND ISLAND
Island slowly being eroded by the water

Travis Elborough has been a freelance writer, author and cultural commentator for more than a decade now. His book include The Bus We Loved, a history of the Routemaster bus;The Long Player Goodbye, a hymn to vinyl records; and Wish You Were Here, a survey of the British beside the seaside. Elborough is a regular contributor to the Observer and the Guardian but has written for the Times, Sunday Times, New Statesman, the Oldie, TATE etc., BBC History magazine and Kinfolk among others and frequently appears on BBC Radio 4 and Five Live.