Las Vegas Boulevard is a major road in Clark County , Nevada , United States, best known for the Las Vegas Strip portion of the road and its casinos . Formerly carrying U.S. Route 91 (US 91), which had been the main highway between Los Angeles , California and Salt Lake City , Utah , it has been bypassed by Interstate 15 and serves mainly local traffic with some sections designated State Route 604 .
85-649: Las Vegas Boulevard runs the length of the Las Vegas metropolitan area in Clark County. "The Boulevard", as it is sometimes called by longtime Las Vegas residents, starts at about 3.75-mile (6.04 km) southwest of the ghost town of Crystal , and continues south to about 2 mi (3.2 km) south of Jean , in the Mojave Desert . The Boulevard shows up again in Primm , but is currently not connected to
170-420: A "bust" (e.g., catastrophic resource price collapse). A gold rush often brought intensive but short-lived economic activity to a remote village, only to leave a ghost town once the resource was depleted. Boomtowns can often decrease in size as quickly as they grew. Sometimes, all, or nearly all, of the population can desert the town, resulting in a ghost town. The dismantling of a boomtown can often occur on
255-558: A city street for locals and tourists. Its current name, in effect since 1959, reflects its importance to the Valley rather than past names when it served as a main intra-city road. On October 16, 2009, the Federal Highway Administration announced the designation of a new National Scenic Byway on the boulevard. The 3.5-mile (5.6 km) section starting at Sahara Avenue and running north to Washington Avenue
340-654: A coast. In the United Kingdom, many seaside towns have turned to other entertainment industries, and some of them have much nightlife. The cinemas and theatres often remain to become host to a number of pubs, bars, restaurants, and nightclubs. Most of their entertainment facilities cater for both local people and visitors and the beaches still remain popular during the summer months. In Europe and North America, ski resorts are towns and villages in ski areas, with support services for skiing such as hotels and chalets , equipment rental, ski schools and ski lifts to access
425-484: A convenient place to stay. There are more than 1500 timeshare resorts in the United States that are operated by major hospitality, timeshare-specific, or independent companies. They represent 198,000 residences and nearly 9 million owners, who pay an average $ 880 per year in maintenance fees. A reported 16% of the residences became vacation rentals . Towns that are resorts or in which tourism or vacationing
510-740: A destination resort is that it offers food, drink, lodging, sports, entertainment, and shopping within the facility so that guests have no need to leave the facility throughout their stay. Commonly, the facilities are of higher quality than would be expected if one were to stay at a hotel or eat in a town's restaurants. Some examples are Atlantis in the Bahamas ; the Walt Disney World Resort , near Orlando, Florida ; Universal Studios Hollywood in San Fernando Valley , United States ; PortAventura World , near Tarragona on
595-419: A fixed price that includes most or all items. At a minimum, most inclusive resorts include lodging, unlimited food, drink, sports activities, and entertainment for the fixed price. In recent years, the number of resorts in the United States offering "all-inclusive" amenities has decreased dramatically. In 1961, over half offered such plans, but in 2007, less than a tenth do so. All-inclusive resorts are found in
680-842: A ghost town because the economic activity that supported it (usually industrial or agricultural) has failed or ended for any reason (e.g. a host ore deposit exhausted by mining ). The town may have also declined because of natural or human-caused disasters such as floods , prolonged droughts, extreme heat or extreme cold, government actions, uncontrolled lawlessness, war, pollution, or nuclear and radiation-related accidents and incidents . The term can sometimes refer to cities, towns, and neighborhoods that, though still populated, are significantly less so than in past years; for example, those affected by high levels of unemployment and dereliction. Some ghost towns, especially those that preserve period-specific architecture, have become tourist attractions. Some examples are Bannack, Montana and Oatman, Arizona in
765-514: A one-room schoolhouse. Another example of infrastructure remaining is the former town of Weston, Illinois , that voted itself out of existence and turned the land over for construction of the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory . Many houses and even a few barns remain, used for housing visiting scientists and storing maintenance equipment, while roads that used to cross through the site have been blocked off at
850-570: A part in the abandonment of settlements within Europe. Two examples are Pripyat and Chernobyl . After the Chernobyl disaster of 1986, Both cities were evacuated due to dangerous radiation levels within the area. As of today, Pripyat remains completely abandoned, and Chernobyl has around 500 remaining inhabitants. Another example is Todoque in Spain. During the 2021 Cumbre Vieja volcanic eruption ,
935-444: A planned basis. Mining companies nowadays will create a temporary company town to service a mine site, building all the accommodations, shops and services required, and then remove them once the resource has been extracted. Modular buildings can be used to facilitate the process. In some cases, multiple factors may remove the economic basis for a community; some former mining towns on U.S. Route 66 suffered both mine closures when
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#17327758105581020-452: A recent economic and holiday population surge. Another town, Sungai Lembing , Malaysia, was almost deserted due to closure of a tin mine in 1986 was revived in 2001 and has become a tourist destination since then. Foncebadón , a village in León , Spain, that was mostly abandoned and only inhabited by a mother and son, is slowly being revived owing to the ever-increasing stream of pilgrims on
1105-434: A result of a natural or human-made disaster or other causes; they restrict the term to settlements that were deserted because they were no longer economically viable. Some believe that any settlement with visible tangible remains should not be called a ghost town; others say, conversely, that a ghost town should contain the tangible remains of buildings. Whether or not the settlement must be completely deserted, or may contain
1190-422: A shift towards fly-in fly-out arrangements over building a company town , in order to avoid the development of ghost towns once a mining resource has been fully extracted. The Middle East has many ghost towns and ruins that were created when the shifting of politics or the fall of empires caused capital cities to be socially or economically unviable, such as Ctesiphon . The rise of real-estate speculation and
1275-420: A small population, is also a matter for debate. Generally, though, the term is used in a looser sense, encompassing any and all of these definitions. American author Lambert Florin defined a ghost town as "a shadowy semblance of a former self." Factors leading to the abandonment of towns include depleted natural resources, economic activity shifting elsewhere, railroads and roads bypassing or no longer accessing
1360-650: A string of ghost towns in areas such as the Solana Valley . Traditional agricultural practices such as sheep and goat rearing, on which the mountain village economy was based, were not taken over by the local youth, especially after the lifestyle changes that swept over rural Spain during the second half of the 20th century. Examples for ghost towns in Italy include the medieval village of Fabbriche di Careggine near Lago di Vagli , in province of Lucca , in Tuscany ,
1445-468: A town's life. In 1944, occupying German Waffen-SS troops murdered almost the entire population of the French village Oradour-sur-Glane . A new settlement was built nearby after the war, but the old town was left depopulated on the orders of President Charles de Gaulle , as a permanent memorial. In Germany, numerous smaller towns and villages in the former eastern territories were completely destroyed in
1530-1064: Is a major part of the local activity are sometimes called resort towns . If by the sea, they are called seaside resorts . Inland resorts include ski resorts , mountain resorts and spa towns . Well-known resort towns include Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic , Bandipur in Nepal , Bali in Indonesia , Sochi in Russia , Mount Lebanon Tourism in Lebanon , Barizo in Spain , Cortina d'Ampezzo in Italy, Druskininkai in Lithuania , Cartagena de Indias in Colombia , Cancún in Mexico , Newport, Rhode Island , and Key West, Florida , in
1615-505: Is a short-term residential/lodging facility with the primary purpose of providing individual services for spa goers to develop healthy habits. Historically, many such spas were developed at the location of natural hot springs or sources of mineral waters. Typically over a seven-day stay, such facilities provide a comprehensive program that includes spa services, physical fitness activities, healthy diet programs, and special interest programming. Golf resorts are resorts that cater specifically to
1700-407: Is not always a commercial establishment operated by a single company, but in the late 20th century, that sort of facility became more common. In British English , "resort" means a town which people visit for holidays and day trips, typically containing hotels where holidaymakers stay. Examples of such towns include Blackpool and Brighton . A destination resort is a resort that itself contains
1785-481: Is now home to more than four million people. Wars and rebellions in some African countries have left many towns and villages deserted. Since 2003, when President François Bozizé came to power, thousands of citizens of the Central African Republic have been forced to flee their homes as a result of the escalating conflict between armed rebels and government troops. Villages accused of supporting
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#17327758105581870-466: The Sperrgebiet ("forbidden zone"), effectively criminalizing new settlement. The small mining towns of this area, among them Pomona , Elizabeth Bay and Kolmanskop , were exempt from this ban, but the denial of new land claims soon rendered all of them ghost towns. The town of Dhanushkodi , India is a ghost town. It was destroyed during the 1964 Rameswaram cyclone and remains uninhabited in
1955-632: The Caribbean , particularly in Jamaica , Dominican Republic ; in Egypt , and elsewhere. Notable examples are Club Med , Sandals Resorts , and Beaches Resorts . An all-inclusive resort includes three meals daily, soft drinks , most alcoholic drinks , gratuities , and usually other services in the price. Many also offer sports and other activities included in the price as well. They are often located in warmer regions. The all-inclusive model originated in
2040-469: The Chernobyl disaster of 1986, dangerously high levels of nuclear contamination escaped into the surrounding area, and nearly 200 towns and villages in Ukraine and neighbouring Belarus were evacuated, including the cities of Pripyat and Chernobyl . The area was so contaminated that many of the evacuees were never permitted to return to their homes. Pripyat is the most famous of these abandoned towns; it
2125-629: The Club Med resorts, which were founded by the Belgian Gérard Blitz . Some all-inclusive resorts are designed for specific groups. For example, some resorts cater for adults only, and even more-specialized properties accept couples only. Other all-inclusive resorts are geared toward families, with facilities like craft centers, game rooms, and water parks to keep children of all ages entertained. All-inclusive resorts are also very popular locations for destination weddings. A spa resort
2210-475: The Costa Daurada in Spain ; Costa do Sauípe, Northeastern Brazil ; Laguna Phuket, Thailand and Sun City , near Johannesburg , South Africa . Closely related to resorts are convention and large meeting sites. Generally, these resorts are located in cities where they offer special meeting halls, ample accommodations, and a variety of dining and entertainment options. An all-inclusive resort charges
2295-570: The Harry Reid International Airport property. The sign is often considered the south end of the Strip. "South Strip" is now used to describe the section of Las Vegas Boulevard between Russell Road and Blue Diamond Road. Along this stretch, development thins out, except for newer shopping malls , hotels , resorts , casinos and condominiums (such as South Point Hotel & Casino and The Grandview at Las Vegas ) as
2380-699: The Interstate highway system replaced the railroads as the favored means of transportation. Ghost towns are common in mining or mill towns in all the western states, and many eastern and southern states as well. Residents are compelled to leave in search of more productive areas when the resources that had created an employment boom in these towns were eventually exhausted. Sometimes a ghost town consists of many abandoned buildings as in Bodie, California , or standing ruins as in Rhyolite, Nevada , while elsewhere only
2465-707: The Las Vegas Strip . In Singapore , integrated resort is a euphemism for a casino -based destination resort. A holiday village is a type of self-contained resort in Europe whose accommodation is generally in villas . A holiday camp , in the United Kingdom , refers to a resort whose accommodation is in chalets or static caravans . A resort hotel contains full-sized luxury facilities with full-service accommodations and amenities . These hotels may attract vacationing tourists and offer more than
2550-604: The National Register of Historic Places . Starting in 2002, an attempt to declare an official ghost town in California stalled when the adherents of the town of Bodie and those of Calico , in Southern California , could not agree on the most deserving settlement for the recognition. A compromise was eventually reached—Bodie became the official state gold rush ghost town, while Calico was named
2635-828: The Old Las Vegas Mormon Fort State Historic Park , the Neon Museum , and the Fremont Street Experience and downtown casino sector. On crossing Washington Avenue, the Boulevard is designated as the Downtown Las Vegas Boulevard Scenic Byway by the state. This designation continues south to Sahara Avenue. Further south is a stretch of road that has many of the older motels , bars and wedding chapels that were among
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2720-591: The Stanford Battle Area , were commandeered by the War Office for use as training grounds for British and US troops. Although this was intended to be a temporary measure, the residents were never allowed to return, and the villages have been used for military training ever since. Three miles or 5 km southeast of Imber is Copehill Down , a deserted village purpose-built for training in urban warfare . Disasters & natural disasters have played
2805-604: The United States , Ischgl in Austria , St. Moritz in Switzerland and Blackpool in the United Kingdom . A resort island is an island or an archipelago that contains resorts, hotels, restaurants, tourist attractions, and its amenities. Maldives is considered to have the best island resorts, which have become famous among the top celebrities and sportspersons around the world. Seaside resorts are located on
2890-430: The Boulevard continues to travel south, just to the east of Interstate 15 . After passing the M Resort , the Boulevard enters rural desert areas. It continues to parallel Interstate 15 and eventually arrives at Jean . South of Jean, the road ceases to be a major artery for a stretch of several miles before resuming just north of Primm , where it runs alongside two of the resort's hotels and shopping mall; just short of
2975-595: The Las Vegas Strip) and State Route 6 (entire segment, unsigned ). South of the city, Las Vegas Boulevard was commonly known as the Los Angeles Highway . Just north of Jean is the place where the last spike on the San Pedro, Los Angeles, and Salt Lake Railroad line was driven. With the construction of I-15, Las Vegas Boulevard went from being the main through road to one that only served as
3060-665: The Nevada/California state line, the road changes its name to Lotto Store Road and becomes a local road. RTC Transit Route(s) 113 (and the MAX, before February 2016, when it was decommissioned) serves the road from Downtown Las Vegas north to Nellis Air Force Base, The Deuce serves the Road from Downtown Las Vegas south to Warm Springs and then to the South Strip Transfer Terminal (SSTT)). Route 117 serves
3145-461: The Strip technically ending at Russell Road . This is the section of the road most people are familiar with; it is home to casino megaresorts with their world-famous lights, huge video signs, and other attractions. It is designated as an All-American Road . Just past the end of "The Strip", the road passes the Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign (located in the median) as it abuts the western edge of
3230-847: The U.S. when NASA acquired land to construct the John C. Stennis Space Center (SSC), a rocket testing facility in Hancock County, Mississippi (on the Mississippi side of the Pearl River , which is the Mississippi – Louisiana state line). This required NASA to acquire a large (approximately 34-square-mile or 88-square-kilometre) buffer zone because of the loud noise and potential dangers associated with testing such rockets. Five thinly populated rural Mississippi communities (Gainesville, Logtown, Napoleon, Santa Rosa, and Westonia), plus
3315-545: The United States, and Canada, where housing is often used as an investment rather than for habitation. Railroads and roads bypassing or no longer reaching a town can also create a ghost town. This was the case in many of the ghost towns along Ontario's historic Opeongo Line , and along U.S. Route 66 after motorists bypassed the latter on the faster moving highways I-44 and I-40 . Some ghost towns were founded along railways where steam trains would stop at periodic intervals for repairs or to take on water. Amboy, California ,
3400-784: The United States; Barkerville, British Columbia in Canada; Craco and Pompeii in Italy; Aghdam in Azerbaijan; Kolmanskop in Namibia; Pripyat and Chernobyl in Ukraine; Dhanushkodi in India; Fordlândia in Brazil and Villa Epecuén in Argentina. T. Lindsey Baker, author of Ghost Towns of Texas , defines a ghost town as "a town for which the reason for being no longer exists." Some writers discount settlements that were abandoned as
3485-406: The aftermath. Many abandoned towns and settlements in the former Soviet Union were established near Gulag labour camps to supply necessary services. Since most of these camps were abandoned in the 1950s, the towns were abandoned as well. One such town is located near the former Gulag camp called Butugychag (also called Lower Butugychag). Other towns were deserted due to deindustrialisation and
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3570-514: The country, were wiped out due to the Great Famine in the latter half of the 19th century, and the years of economic decline that followed. Catastrophic environmental damage caused by long-term contamination can also create a ghost town. Some notable examples are Times Beach, Missouri , whose residents were exposed to a high level of dioxins , and Wittenoom, Western Australia , which was once Australia's largest source of blue asbestos , but
3655-487: The deserted mountain village Craco located in Basilicata , which has served as a filming location, and the ghost village Roveraia, in the municipality of Loro Ciuffenna , in province of Arezzo , situated near Pratovalle . During World War II it was an important partisan base and it was definitively abandoned in the 1980s, when the last family who lived here, left the village. . Two projects have been proposed for
3740-737: The development of ghost towns. Tyneham , in Dorset , was requisitioned for military exercises during the Second World War , and remains unpopulated, being littered with unexploded munitions from regular shelling. A few ghost towns have managed to get a second life, and this happens through a variety of reasons. One of these reasons is heritage tourism generating a new economy able to support residents. For example, Walhalla, Victoria , Australia, became almost deserted after its gold mine ceased operation in 1914, but owing to its accessibility and proximity to other attractive locations, it has had
3825-409: The direction before the road name is common practice, The Boulevard is an exception, as it is rarely referred to as "North Las Vegas Boulevard" and "South Las Vegas Boulevard". The road instead is usually referred to as "Las Vegas Boulevard North" (abbreviated LVBN) and "Las Vegas Boulevard South" (stylized LVBS), by both residents and various media outlets. At its northern end, the Boulevard starts at
3910-637: The economic crises of the early 1990s attributed to post-Soviet conflicts – one example being Tkvarcheli in Georgia, a coal mining town that suffered a drastic population decline as a result of the War in Abkhazia in the early 1990s. Although in 2010s Chinese ghost cities became a frequent feature of discourse regarding China's economy and urbanization , under-occupied cities filled up. Writing in 2023, academic and former UK diplomat Kerry Brown described
3995-410: The edges of the property, with gatehouses or barricades to prevent unsupervised access. Construction of dams has produced ghost towns that have been left underwater. Examples include: Some towns become deserted when their populations were massacred , deported, or expelled. Examples include Kayaköy, an ancient Greek city abandoned in 1923 as result of population exchange between Greece and Turkey and
4080-431: The entire population to flee. Upon seizing the city, Armenian forces destroyed much of the town to discourage Azerbaijanis from returning. More damage occurred in the following decades when locals looted the abandoned town for building materials. It is currently almost entirely ruined and uninhabited. Natural and human-made disasters can create ghost towns. For example, after being flooded more than 30 times since their town
4165-510: The foundations of former buildings remain as in Graysonia, Arkansas . Old mining camps that have lost most of their population at some stage of their history such as Aspen , Deadwood , Oatman , Tombstone and Virginia City are sometimes referred to as ghost towns although they are presently active towns and cities. Many U.S. ghost towns, such as South Pass City in Wyoming are listed on
4250-498: The high points of the old Vegas before the era of the megaresorts . The Boulevard leaves the city of Las Vegas at Sahara Avenue and assumes its unofficial name the Las Vegas Strip for the next 4 miles (6.4 km). This portion of Las Vegas Boulevard begins a few blocks to the north at the Stratosphere (the only major Strip hotel/casino sited within the Las Vegas city limits) and runs through Winchester and Paradise , with
4335-595: The idea of Chinese ghost cities as a popular bandwagon which was shown to be a myth. The town of Namie , along with several other towns in Fukushima Prefecture , Japan, was temporarily evacuated as a result of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster following the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami . Following ongoing decontamination works, several portions of Namie have been fully reopened to residents, allowing reconstruction and renovation of
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#17327758105584420-530: The last two years of the war. These territories later became part of Poland and the Soviet Union , and many of the smaller settlements were never rebuilt or repopulated, for example Kłomino ( Westfalenhof ), Pstrąże ( Pstransse ), and Janowa Góra ( Johannesberg ). Some villages in England were also abandoned during the war, but for different reasons. Imber , on Salisbury Plain , and several villages in
4505-629: The locality was severely affected. Hundreds of buildings which also includes Church of Saint Pius X, the health center, the headquarters of the neighborhood association, the School of Early Childhood Education, and Los Campitos Elementary School and the Todoque Elementary and the Infant Education School, and by October 10, new lava flows destroyed the buildings that were still standing, leaving the town practically erased from
4590-505: The map. An example in the UK of a ghost village which was abandoned before it was ever occupied is at Polphail , Argyll and Bute . The planned development of an oil rig construction facility nearby never materialised, and a village built to house the workers and their families became deserted the moment the building contractors finished their work. War activities, displacements and complete destruction of cities as result of intense fighting were
4675-471: The most notable are Anyox , Kitsault , and Ocean Falls . Some ghost towns have revived their economies and populations due to historical and eco-tourism, such as Barkerville ; once the largest town north of Kamloops , it is now a year-round provincial museum. In Quebec, Val-Jalbert is a well-known tourist ghost town; founded in 1901 around a mechanical pulp mill that became obsolete when paper mills began to break down wood fibre by chemical means, it
4760-525: The nation's second-largest city with 1 million people, was a village of only a few thousand people before colonization. Alexandria , the second-largest city of Egypt, was a flourishing city in the Ancient era, but declined during the Middle Ages. It underwent a dramatic revival during the 19th century; from a population of 5,000 in 1806, it grew into a city of more than 200,000 inhabitants by 1882, and
4845-413: The necessary guest attraction capabilities so it does not need to be near a destination (town, historic site, theme park, or other) to attract its patrons. A commercial establishment at a resort destination such as a recreational area, a scenic or historic site, amusement park , a gaming facility, or other tourist attraction may compete with other businesses at a destination. Consequently, another quality of
4930-464: The northern portion of a sixth ( Pearlington ), along with 700 families in residence, had to be completely relocated away from the facility. Sometimes the town might cease to officially exist, but the physical infrastructure remains. For example, the five Mississippi communities that had to be abandoned to build SSC still have remnants of those communities within the facility itself. These include city streets, now overgrown with forest flora and fauna, and
5015-489: The northern sections. There are tentative plans to connect the existing section at Primm to the northern section at Jean. Las Vegas Boulevard serves as the Valley's east/west address demarcation boundary line south of the Strat onwards. The road's own north/south street address demarcation boundary is located at its intersection with Fremont Street. Unlike most other cases, where using the more traditional nomenclature of putting
5100-617: The official state silver rush ghost town. Resort A resort ( North American English ) is a self-contained commercial establishment that aims to provide most of a vacationer 's needs. This includes food, drink, swimming, accommodation, sports, entertainment and shopping, on the premises. A hotel is frequently a central feature of a resort and the term resort may be used for a hotel that provides an array of entertainment and recreational activities. Some resorts are also condominium complexes that offer timeshares or fractional ownership, in addition to wholly owned condominiums. A resort
5185-642: The original French village at Oradour-sur-Glane which was destroyed on 10 June 1944 when 642 of its 663 inhabitants were killed by a German Waffen-SS company. A new village was built after the war on a nearby site, and the ruins of the original have been maintained as a memorial. Another example is Aghdam , a city in Azerbaijan . Armenian forces occupied Aghdam in July 1993 during the First Nagorno-Karabakh War . The heavy fighting forced
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#17327758105585270-463: The reason for abandonment can arise from a town's intended economic function shifting to another, nearby place. This happened to Collingwood, Queensland , in Outback Australia when nearby Winton outperformed Collingwood as a regional centre for the livestock-raising industry. The railway reached Winton in 1899, linking it with the rest of Queensland , and Collingwood was a ghost town by the following year. More broadly across Australia, there has been
5355-467: The reason for their complete abandonment. Examples are Marinka and Soledar in Donbas in Ukraine . Canada has several ghost towns in parts of British Columbia , Alberta , Ontario , Saskatchewan , Newfoundland and Labrador , and Quebec . Some were logging towns or dual mining and logging sites, often developed at the behest of the company . In Alberta and Saskatchewan, most ghost towns were once farming communities that have since died off due to
5440-449: The rebels, such as Beogombo Deux near Paoua , are ransacked by government soldiers. Those who are not killed have no choice but to escape to refugee camps. The instability in the region also leaves organized and well-equipped bandits free to terrorize the populace, often leaving villages abandoned in their wake. Elsewhere in Africa, the town of Lukangol was burnt to the ground during tribal clashes in South Sudan . Before its destruction,
5525-699: The recovery of the village: in 2011 the proposal of Movimento Libero Perseo "Roveraia eco - lab", based on sustainability, and in 2019 there was a proposal aiming to recover the village with a mix of functions called "Ecomuseum of Pratomagno". In the United Kingdom, thousands of villages were abandoned during the Middle Ages, as a result of Black Death , revolts, and enclosure , the process by which vast amounts of farmland became privately owned. Since there are rarely any visible remains of these settlements, they are not generally considered ghost towns; instead, they are referred to in archaeological circles as deserted medieval villages . Sometimes, wars and genocide end
5610-420: The removal of the railway through the town or the bypass of a highway. The ghost towns in British Columbia were predominantly mining towns and prospecting camps as well as canneries and, in one or two cases, large smelter and pulp mill towns. British Columbia has more ghost towns than any other jurisdiction on the North American continent, with more than 1,500 abandoned or semi-abandoned towns and localities. Among
5695-502: The resources were depleted and loss of highway traffic as US 66 was diverted from places like Oatman, Arizona , onto a more direct path. Mine and pulp mill closures have led to many ghost towns in British Columbia, Canada, including several relatively recent ones: Ocean Falls , which closed in 1973 after the pulp mill was decommissioned; Kitsault , whose molybdenum mine shut down after only 18 months in 1982; and Cassiar , whose asbestos mine operated from 1952 to 1992. In other cases,
5780-458: The resulting possibility of real-estate bubbles (sometimes due to outright overbuilding by land developers) may also trigger the appearance of certain elements of a ghost town, as real-estate prices initially rise (whereupon affordable housing becomes less available) and then later fall for a variety of reasons that are often tied to economic cycles and/or marketing hubris. This has been observed to occur in various countries, including Spain, China,
5865-442: The road enters the city of North Las Vegas , it passes through some of the older commercial areas in the region. As the road approaches the city of Las Vegas proper, some of what historical Las Vegas became visible, as some of the older casinos appear along with some of the more famous and long-operating strip clubs . Upon entering the city limits of Las Vegas, the Boulevard showcases the area's past with many museums , including
5950-476: The road south from the SSTT past the Las Vegas Premium Outlet South store, the South Point Casino and Silverado Ranch Blvd. Las Vegas Boulevard has had several names, including 5th Street (from Sahara to Owens, within the Las Vegas city limits), Main Street (in North Las Vegas), the Arrowhead Highway , Los Angeles Highway, Salt Lake Highway, US 91 (entire segment), US 93 (from Fremont Street north), US 466 (from Jean to Fremont Street, including
6035-537: The road to Santiago de Compostela . Some ghost towns (e.g. Riace , Muñotello ) are being repopulated by respectively refugees and homeless people . In Riace, this was accomplished by a scheme funded by the Italian government which offers the housing to refugees and in Muñotello it was accomplished through an NGO ( Madrina Foundation ). In Algeria, many cities became hamlets after the end of Late Antiquity . They were revived with shifts in population during and after French colonization of Algeria . Oran , currently
6120-604: The south end of Moapa Paulite Solar Road. Running north of, but roughly parallel with I-15, it heads southwest toward Las Vegas, passing through an industrial complex of manufacturing plants and power plants running along the Union Pacific Railroad line in Apex . Traveling south, the road meets Nellis Air Force Base on the east side and the Las Vegas Motor Speedway on the west side. As
6205-467: The sport of golf , and they include access to one or more golf courses and/or clubhouses. Golf resorts typically provide golf packages that provide visitors with all greens and cart fees, range balls, accommodations, and meals. In North America , a ski resort is generally a destination resort in a ski area. The term is less likely to refer to a town or village. A megaresort is a type of destination resort of an exceptionally-large size, such as those along
6290-580: The town had a population of 20,000. The Libyan town of Tawergha had a population of around 25,000 before it was abandoned during the 2011 civil war , and it has remained empty since. Many of the ghost towns in mineral-rich Africa are former mining towns. Shortly after the start of the 1908 diamond rush in German South-West Africa , now known as Namibia , the German Imperial government claimed sole mining rights by creating
6375-558: The town's buildings to be undertaken and resettlement of the area to take place. Urbanization – the migration of a country's rural population into the cities – has left many European towns and villages deserted. An increasing number of settlements in Bulgaria are becoming ghost towns for this reason; at the time of the 2011 census, the country had 181 uninhabited settlements. In Hungary, dozens of villages are also threatened with abandonment. The first village officially declared as "dead"
6460-406: The town, human intervention, disasters, massacres, wars, the shifting of politics or fall of empires, and volcanic eruptions. A town can also be abandoned when it is part of an exclusion zone due to natural or human-made causes . Ghost towns may result when the single activity or resource that created a boomtown (e.g., nearby mine, mill or resort) is depleted or the resource economy undergoes
6545-460: Was Gyűrűfű [ hu ] in the late 1970s, but later it was repopulated as an eco-village . Some other depopulated villages were successfully saved as small rural resorts, such as Kán , Tornakápolna , Szanticska , Gorica , and Révfalu . In Spain, large zones of the mountainous Iberian System and the Pyrenees have undergone heavy depopulation since the early 20th century, leaving
6630-487: Was abandoned due to an uncontainable mine fire , which began in 1962 and still rages to this day; eventually the fire reached an abandoned mine underneath the nearby town of Byrnesville , which caused that mine to catch on fire too and forced the evacuation of that town as well. Ghost towns may also occasionally come into being due to an anticipated natural disaster – for example, the Canadian town of Lemieux, Ontario ,
6715-595: Was abandoned in 1991 after soil testing revealed that the community was built on an unstable bed of Leda clay . Two years after the last building in Lemieux was demolished, a landslide swept part of the former town-site into the South Nation River . Two decades earlier, the Canadian town of Saint-Jean-Vianney , Québec, also constructed on a Leda clay base, had been abandoned after a landslide on 4 May 1971, which swept away 41 homes, killing 31 people. Following
6800-527: Was abandoned when the mill closed in 1927 and re-opened as a park in 1960. Many ghost towns or abandoned communities exist in the American Great Plains , the rural areas of which have lost a third of their population since 1920. Thousands of communities in the northern plains states of Montana , Nebraska , North Dakota , and South Dakota became railroad ghost towns when a rail line failed to materialize. Hundreds of towns were abandoned as
6885-595: Was built for the workers of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant and had a population of almost 50,000 at the time of the disaster. Significant fatality rates from epidemics have produced ghost towns. Some places in eastern Arkansas were abandoned after more than 7,000 Arkansans died during the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918 and 1919. Several communities in Ireland, particularly in the west of
6970-457: Was designated the City of Las Vegas, Las Vegas Boulevard State Scenic Byway . [REDACTED] Media related to Las Vegas Boulevard at Wikimedia Commons Ghost town A ghost town , deserted city , extinct town , or abandoned city is an abandoned settlement, usually one that contains substantial visible remaining buildings and infrastructure such as roads. A town often becomes
7055-634: Was founded in 1845, residents of Pattonsburg, Missouri , decided to relocate after two floods in 1993. With government help, the whole town was rebuilt 3 miles or 5 km away. Craco , a medieval village in the Italian region of Basilicata , was evacuated after a landslide in 1963. Nowadays it is a filming location for many movies, including The Passion of The Christ by Mel Gibson , Christ Stopped at Eboli by Francesco Rosi , The Nativity Story by Catherine Hardwicke and Quantum of Solace by Marc Forster . In 1984, Centralia, Pennsylvania ,
7140-626: Was part of one such series of villages along the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad across the Mojave Desert . River re-routing is another factor, one example being the towns along the Aral Sea . Ghost towns may be created when land is expropriated by a government, and residents are required to relocate. One example is the village of Tyneham in Dorset, England, acquired during World War II to build an artillery range. A similar situation occurred in
7225-561: Was shut down in 1966 due to health concerns. Treece and Picher , twin communities straddling the Kansas – Oklahoma border, were once one of the United States' largest sources of zinc and lead , but over a century of unregulated disposal of mine tailings led to groundwater contamination and lead poisoning in the town's children, eventually resulting in a mandatory Environmental Protection Agency buyout and evacuation. Contamination due to ammunition caused by military use may also lead to
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