20 Unruffled Abandoned Places around the World

Kolmanskop, Namibia

Kolmanskop is a ghost town in the Namib Desert in southern Namibia. The town was named after a transport driver named Johnny Coleman who abandoned his ox wagon on a small incline opposite in the settlement during a sand storm. Driven by the enormous wealth of the first diamond miners, the residents built the village in the architectural style of a German town with amenities and institutions. After World War 1, the town declined when a diamond-field slowly exhausted and was ultimately abandoned in 1954. The geological forces of the desert mean that tourist now walk through houses knee-deep in sand.