Towns and cities have been cultural and social epicenters throughout humanity’s existence. In recorded history, entire civilizations, each baring invaluable innovations that forced humanity into the progress it has achieved today have been driven by historical cities like London, Rome, Paris, and many others. But just because a city bares historical importance, does not mean that mother nature feels similarly. Keep reading till the end to discover our list of the TOP 10 Abandoned Settlements That Are Now Underwater
Most cities can withstand most moderate and some significant natural disasters, and with time, rebuild to their former selves, or an even stronger version of such. However, some disasters are far too much to overcome, and result in a city, perhaps of great prominence, being laid to waste.
One far-too common course of events sees cities be drowned in meters of water, but while this submersion ends the likely life of a metropolis, the ruins are preserved better underwater than the ruins of cities left to the elements in open-air environments. This has afforded humanity to see some ancient structures in a miraculously preserved fashion.
One example of such an instance is China’s Shi Cheng, sometimes referred to as the “Atlantis Of The East.” Unfortunately for the residents, the good fortune of preservation generally does not extend to them, as most helplessly watch sand or sea reclaim their dominance over the land their cities sat in.
Abandoned Settlements That Are Now Underwater
There have been many abandoned settlements located around the world, many of which reside quietly on the ocean or sea floors. Let’s dive into 10 of the most notable ones known to man.
1. Thonis-Heracleion
The Thonis-Heracleion is not a widely known location today, but in the ancient world, it was one of Africa’s most important cities. It has been featured prominently in countless stories from ancient Greece, especially since it was Heracles’ initial point of harbor when he arrived in Africa. Ancient Egyptian writings hailed Thonis-Heracleion as a bustling center where people of many nationalities and from vastly different backgrounds met at a center point for vast international trade.
For well over a thousand years Thonis-Heracleion served as Egypt’s primary trade capital, where historians have uncovered in the watery depths where the necropolis currently resides, Egyptian and Greek armor together, as well as art and sculpture with both Egyptian and Hellenic influences. Evidence also points to Thonis-Heracleion being a center of religious amalgamation, which marked the genesis of the new Greek Ptolemaic dynasty, as well as its depiction and worship through Egyptian art.
The city was primarily built on a series of small islands along with the Egyptian coast’s wetland areas, similar in certain ways to modern-day Venice. The city served as a maritime hub, connected via canals and various waterways that allowed bustling ship activity.
But also, much like Venice, the city was slowly being further submerged, and by the end of the second century BC, the waters had reclaimed a significant portion of the city, liquefying the city as it descended fully into the depth of the sea. The higher portions of it remained and continued to function as a livable village, losing much of its significance in the process. Eventually, it was entirely overrun by the waters and by 800 AD was nearly forgotten.
2. Port Royal
Upon capturing Jamaica from Spain, England intentionally permitted the island to be overrun by pirates. The islands that surrounded it remained in Spanish control, so this was a strategic move by the British to keep Spain occupied by having to deal with maritime thieves and criminals, and dissuade them from attempting to reconquer the island seeing as it was overrun by many armed men.
As a pirate nation, one of the most prominent hubs and havens for pirates became the city of Port Royal. As one might imagine, a city run by pirates became known as the world’s wickedest. It was a generally lawless city where pirates would engage in theft and trade, while its streets were filled with prostitutes, drunks, and corrupt merchants.
Acquiring property with minimal government control was nearly impossible, so settlers arriving in Port Royal planted their homes on whatever land patch they could find. There was certainly no infrastructure to erect stone buildings or lay out roads, so when the major earthquake rocked the city in 1692, practically the entire city collapsed.
So does Port Royal still exist today? It technically does, but it is now little more than a fishing village. However, dozens of old buildings from the town can still be seen below the surface of the water. Locals in the area are always looking to capitalize on the interesting wonders of the currently submerged former pirate city, turning it into a tourist venture, but unfortunately, the government is not interested in supporting the initiative.
3. Lost Villages Of Ontario
The US and Canada began a joint venture, named the Saint Lawrence Seaway, in the 1950s aimed at connecting the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes so that ships can travel as far inland as Minnesota. Work on the project kicked off in 1954 and was completed in 1959, with all parties agreeing on the project’s overwhelming success.
There was, however, one exception: Nine Canadian village communities needed to be flooded. These included Santa Cruz, Wales, Farran’s Points, Aultsville, Maple Grove, Dickinson’s Landing, Mille Roches, Moulinette, and Sheek’s Island. These, along with part of Canada’s Highway 2 were submerged underwater to make the Seaway possible, with the latter being rebuilt farther upland.
The flooded villages were very old, originally built in the 1700s, with certain ones in places that formerly hosted Native American settlements. Most of the area was occupied by the Mohawk tribes before the European settlers arrived. The people (about 6,000 of them) who lived in the flooded villages were relocated, as were about 500 buildings, to newly planned towns. While residents were promised that their homes would be of a similar value as the ones they left behind, they were unimpressed and complained that the value had been degraded.
The villages can hardly be accessed today, as most of them are still fully submerged until busy shipping lanes. When the tide is low, some are occasionally still observable beneath the water’s surface. The most haunting part about the entire thing is that these are not some ancient relics of yesteryear, as these existed recently enough to have many photographs available of the now abandoned, submerged towns bustling with people going about their normal daily lives.
4. Neapolis
In July, 365 a massive natural disaster in the form of a tsunami hit the city of Neapolis, one of Tunisia’s most prominent Roman cities, causing damage as far as the southern coast of Alexandria. While the damage in the latter did not wipe out another giant city of its time, Neapolis was covered with water. It would stay that way for 1,700 years, discovered again in 2017 after an extensive 7-year research venture by an archeological team.
Despite being a Roman town, Neapolis sided with Carthage during the time’s Punic Wars, so the Romans practically wrote the city out of its records, though archeologists’ findings pointed to the city being large and quite sophisticated. The streets of Neapolis held remnants of statues, proving a cultural lineage developed there during its existence.
The town’s predominant industry was determined to be garum sauce derived from fish, a traditional Roman delicacy that was produced on an industrial scale, with the discovery of more than 100 tanks used for its production. Researchers now believe that the majority of it might have been produced in Neapolis.
5. Vilarinoho Da Furna
According to local lore, Vilarinoho Da Furna was believed to have been initially settled by a Visigothic tribe in the first century. As recently as the 1970s the population of just a few hundred people still utilized the democratic system set up by the tribe back in the day. In this system, each family in the village got a single vote, which then went to an array of married men in the town, leading to the elected representative serving a 6-month term.
In the 1950s the government began planning to turn the lands surrounding the Vilarinoho Da Furna village into a reservoir, with surveying and testing taking place until the project finally began in 1967. In 1970, the villagers were warned about the process, leading to a full town evacuation in the year 1971.
However, they needed to build a new road in order to get the trucks to come to the village in order to help the citizens move their things out. The residents took a lot of things with them, including roof tiles. When everyone had fully abandoned the village, the houses that remained were bare shells of their former selves.
The interesting thing about the abandoned village of Vilarinoho Da Furna is that in the summer months the water levels drop, leading to the now-submerged town emerging from the water. This is a big draw for tourists who come to visit the reservoir, as well as the globally known underwater museum established by the Association of Former-Inhabitants of Vilarinoho Da Furna.
6. Capel Celyn
In 1965 a reservoir that drowned the village of Capel Celyn was formally opened, with residents evacuating the town just three years before that. While excited reservoir developers planned a 45-minute opening ceremony, the anger of some Welsh activists, built up over years, ruined those plans by charging through it from a nearby hill, cutting off microphones, and chasing away the attendees.
You might be wondering why Capel Celyn needed to undergo the drowning transformation. To understand this, we need to consider that Liverpool in the 1950s was one of England’s most unhealthy cities, badly in need of a new water source. The valley around Capel Celyn was identified as the ideal location for the city’s new reservoir after some initial surveying. But Liverpool is an English city, while the valley in question was in Wales. The valley hosted a village of 67 residents. The Liverpool City Council didn’t foresee removing these people and relocating them to turn the valley into a reservoir being a problem.
To get permission to proceed with the project, the English should have gone directly to the Welsh permission, but instead, they went through the Houses of Parliament, passing a bill that afforded them a land purchase order. That legal segway allowed them access to begin work on the reservoir. As one can imagine this ruffled many Welsh feathers, with the Plaid Cymru, the Welsh nationalist party, seeing a significant member spike. They staged protests, sometimes in Wales, other times in Liverpool streets where unruly Welsh protestors verbally and physically abused the local residents.
The rebelling got taken to another level when three young Welsh men snuck into the construction site and planted a bomb. They were arrested and brought in front of the court. The case drew many sympathetic Welsh activists, but ultimately their efforts bore fruitless results. The Capel Celyn residents were resettled to new properties and the town was flooded. Welsh nationalism spiked even more after those events. In fact, the term “remember the Tryweryn” is still used in modern-day Wales.
Trying to make up for some of the actions and to quell the Welsh protests, the English government passed several funding initiatives that were meant to spur industrial jobs in Llanwern and passed the initial Welsh Language Act.
7. Graun
Early in the first century, Romans settled in a valley in the Alps in a small village named Graun. Throughout medieval times Graun thrived, even erecting a large church in the town, one that is still standing in its initial building place after 700 years. The only difference is, that the church is no longer surrounded by the town, but by water instead. The formerly 200-home village is now marked only by the church’s bells.
Montecatini, an Italian company drew up plans for a hydroelectric dam in 1939. There were two neighboring lakes in the region, and the plan was to flood the valley between them in order to merge the two lakes together, with the hopes of generating enough energy to power the region.
This wasn’t the first time such a project was planned. A few years earlier similar plans had to be scrapped because of local resistance. The second time, things were not looking particularly different. But the project was paused when Italy got sucked into World War II, though it was brought back with more fervor once the war ended. The plan passed and Graun was submerged in 1950.
The bell tower is still accessible to visitors who cross the frozen lake in the winter seasons. Locals claim they hear bells from the tower ringing at night, but that is unlikely seeing as they were removed in July 1950. The 72-foot (22-meter) deep lake would permit divers to go in and explore the submerged town, though the local governments will not allow it.
8. Potosi
The Venezuelan government planned to build a hydroelectric dam. The 1985 project’s plan included flooding a valley that had inhabitants. The approach taken was not quite a tactful one. Carlos Andres Perez, then-president of the country, personally flew to the town, letting residents know that they had to leave since their land was expropriated, scattering the nearly 1,200 town residents across the country to live with friends and relatives, while most of the town was brought down.
The only marker of the town’s existence was the steeple of the town church that jutted out of the water. It became a high-water mark indicator to the locals.
In 2010, an especially severe El Nino effect triggered a country-wide drought, with the reservoir’s water levels depleting by 98 feet (30 meters). This led to a national energy rationing across the entire country. This dramatic drop in water level brought the church and the graveyard next to it, along with the town square and some nearby houses, out of the lake’s waters. This drew some old residents to come in and visit the town until the drought passed and submerged it again.
9. Petersburg
One of Georgia’s most popular destinations for swimmers and tourists alike is Lake Strom Thurmond (Clarks Hill Lake). But what many visitors don’t realize is that in its depths it conceals in its choppy waters Petersburg, a once-thriving town in the area. Settled by Dionysius Oliver in 1786, Petersburg was established to leverage the Broad River Valley’s burgeoning plantation economy, quickly becoming one of the main shipment inspection places and a key outpost.
Petersburg would grow in scope, becoming Georgia’s 3rd-largest town by 1801, with its popularity being boosted prominently by visitors who described it as a gorgeous town full of cultural enrichment and rife with trade. In reality, it was a town of convenience, and its prosperity was directly tied to the wealth of the tobacco plantations. It started to see a downward trend in the early 1800s as the cotton industry began to take over the economy, and fell into decline by 1810.
In 1844, Petersburg lost its post office, at which point most of the town’s residents had already moved elsewhere. A bit of a century later, in 1952, the valley Petersburg resided in began to be filled with water by the US Army Corps of Engineers. After that, that town was abandoned and ultimately forgotten.
The 2002 drought lowered the water levels in the lake so much that the locals were surprised to find an old town submerged beneath it. Foundations of houses, skeletons of old fences, and some scattered pottery could be seen for several days until the water levels began to rise to their former height. Since then, the town has surfaced a few more times, with this event, occurring during hot weather periods, becoming a popular tourist trap in the region.
10. Shi Cheng
China has been known for moving vast numbers of people in the interest of pursuing public work projects, something they are commonly criticized for. One of the most prominent examples of this occurring was the 300,000-person relocation campaign that was tied to the creation of the Qiandao Lake. Some of the relocated residents had lived in the region for many generations.
The effort might have been well-intended but culturally speaking it resulted in one of the biggest tragedies, as it meant the loss of an old Ming-dynasty era city, Shi Cheng, which was covered with impressive monuments, dating to the 1500s and in some instances even before that. The city has existed in the region since the year 208, but it was flooded in 1959, submerging the historical landmark in a 130-foot (40 meters) deep lake.
The city lay largely forgotten until an organized expedition commissioned by the Chinese government descended to survey its ruins. The water, it would seem, did a great job preserving most of the old stone structures wonderfully, protecting them from most elements and effects like rain, soil, and wind erosion. In fact, the city under the lake looks almost exactly how it did before the lake’s creation. To this day, Shi Cheng is one of the best-preserved relics of China’s Imperial Period.
With growing public interest, a 2011 project began to attempt to recreate Shi Cheng’s ancient look. Experienced divers now have several schemes by which they could descend to the bottom of the lake to view what has come to be known as “Atlantis of the East.” While mapping the lake’s floor through these exploratory dives, several other historically intriguing sites have been identified.
Conclusion:
the top 10 abandoned settlements that are now underwater are a testament to the ever-changing face of our planet. These once thriving communities now lay hidden beneath the waves, providing a haunting glimpse into the past. The submergence of these settlements serves as a reminder of the impact that natural disasters, such as earthquakes and rising sea levels, can have on human civilization. The preservation of these underwater ruins offers a unique opportunity for historians and archaeologists to gain new insights into the lives of our ancestors.
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Frequently Asked Questions:
What abandoned city is submerged??
An abandoned city that is submerged is the ancient city of Shi Cheng, also known as Lion City, in China. It was built over 1,300 years ago during the Eastern Han Dynasty and was flooded in 1959 to create a man-made lake as part of a hydroelectric power station project.
Is there a town that is under water?
Yes, there are several towns that are underwater. One example is the town of Shi Cheng in China, which was flooded in the 1950s to create a man-made lake. Another example is the town of Clewiston in Florida, USA, which was intentionally flooded in the 1930s to create Lake Okeechobee.
Is there a hidden city in the ocean?
There is no widely-known hidden city in the ocean, but there are several sunken cities and underwater ruins that have been discovered. These include the ancient city of Shi Cheng in China, the sunken city of Thonis-Heracleion in Egypt, and the underwater ruins of Pavlopetri in Greece.
Hello, and welcome to my blog! My name is Idammah, and I am the founder of this site dedicated to exploring the world's mysteries, uncovering fascinating facts, and delving into science's weird and beautiful aspects. I have always been fascinated by the unknown and the unexplained, and I love nothing more than digging deep to find the answers to some of life's greatest mysteries. Whether it's exploring the depths of the ocean, investigating ancient civilizations, or unraveling the mysteries of the universe, I am always on the hunt for new knowledge and insights. As a self-proclaimed weirdo and science enthusiast, I believe that there is always more to learn and discover, and I am constantly seeking out new and exciting ways to expand my understanding of the world around me. Through FoxPeek blog, I hope to share my love of all things strange and wonderful with like-minded readers and inspire others to embrace their inner curiosity and seek out the world's mysteries for themselves.
