Abandoned islands
For a variety of reasons, these islands have vacancies.
Planning a relaxing beach getaway? You'll probably want to steer clear of these 12 uninhabited islands. Some of these islands were depopulated due to insurmountable environmental forces (an infestation of venomous vipers, for example), some due to economic forces (changing shipping patterns), some due to technological forces (the discovery of a cure for leprosy), and some due to bizarre social forces (a homicidal lighthouse keeper). But all 12 islands still bear the unmistakable imprints of human civilization. Scroll down to begin, or use the map to jump to a specific island.
Islands with vacancy
Click the points above to jump to an abandoned island.
Bikini Atoll, Marshall Islands
The cheery name of this South Pacific island belies its turbulent past. Between 1946 and 1958, the U.S. government conducted over 20 nuclear tests here, including the detonation of the most powerful nuclear device in American history.
In the years following the weapons tests, scientists conducted aerial radiation surveys to assess the condition of the islands.
Immediately prior to these explosive experiments, the 200 or so inhabitants of Bikini Atoll were relocated to tiny Kili Island. Although this relocation was intended to be temporary, the nuclear tests were so toxic that the Bikinians were not allowed to return to their homeland until 1970. Within months of reinhabiting the island, many Bikinians became sick, and so they were once again forced to leave, much to their ire. Bikini Atoll remains abandoned to this day, a desiccated monument to the destructive power of nuclear weapons.
Hashima Island, Japan
Fans of James Bond will immediately recognize the crumbling skyline of this rocky island, known also as Gunkanjima or “Battleship Island,” from its brief appearance in the 2012 film Skyfall. Once a prosperous mining town of over 5,000 people, the island was abandoned in the 1970s after its underwater coal reserves were completely depleted.
The crumbling skyline of Hashima stands in stark contrast to the once-bustling industrial island.
Although it is now defunct and slowly succumbing to the forces of nature, Battleship Island remains of symbol of Japan’s rapid 19th-century industrialization, and has been designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site .
Suakin Island, Sudan
For nearly three millennia, the small island of Suakin, located on Sudan’s Red Sea coastline, served as a strategic port for the great empires of region. First charted in the 11th century BCE by envoys from the court of Pharaoh Ramses III, Suakin prospered into a wealthy commercial city over the next several hundred years, and at its height was known throughout the Old World as a symbol of medieval wealth and luxury. All of Suakin’s buildings were constructed from glimmering coral, and embellished with detailed stone and wooden carvings depicting its historical glory.
The weathered ruins of the ornate structures are all that remains of Suakin Island.
But gradually, nearby Port Sudan began to siphon commercial traffic away from Suakin, and by the 1920s, the island had been abandoned, and its buildings began to fall into disrepair. Suakin remains mostly abandoned to this day, although a nearby city of the same name has flourished.
Ilha da Queimada Grande, Brazil
Located just 90 miles from Sao Paolo—the most populous city in the Southern Hemisphere—Ilha da Queimada Grande has a burgeoning population of its own. Only, its inhabitants aren’t people, but poisonous snakes. Ilha da Queimada Grande is home to between 2,000 and 4,000 golden lancehead pit vipers, which became trapped on the island when rising sea levels separated it from the Brazilian mainland thousands of years ago. The vipers have no natural predators, and have consequently flourished in their habitat.
Watch your step! The local residents aren’t overly friendly to visitors.
In the early 20th century, an intrepid farming company attempted to establish a banana plantation here, but quickly realized its folly, and abandoned the site. The last known inhabitants of the island operated its lone lighthouse until the 1920s, when their bodies were discovered riddled with snakebites. Today, there is approximately one snake per square meter on the island; understandably, it's strictly off-limits to the public.
King Island, United States
Stranded in the frigid waters of the Bering Sea, some 50 miles off the western edge of Alaska (and less than 100 miles from the Russian mainland), King Island may seem an unlikely place for a thriving community. But for centuries, it served as the winter home of the Iñupiat, an Inuit people occupying the rugged island chains of the Alaskan arctic.
The sheer cliffs and rocky coast of King Island couldn't be further from a destination for a tropical getaway.
Long ago, the Iñupiat established a small village, Ukivok, on King Island, using wooden stilts to level their buildings against the rugged slopes. But in the mid 20th century, the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs, in an effort to “modernize” Native American tribes, paid a visit to the island, and promptly shut down its only school and forcibly relocated all of the Iñupiat children to mainland Alaska. The elders, no longer able to gather enough food and supplies to sustain their diminished community, followed shortly thereafter, leaving their small village to succumb to the harsh arctic environment.
Stilted wooden structures dot the rocky shore overlooking the Bering Sea.
Spinalonga, Greece
Between 1903 and 1957, this tiny Greek island, which sits just off the northern coast of Crete, served as one of the last leper colonies in Europe. Life in the colony was difficult, especially for those who’d been forcibly separated from their families on the mainland, and it’s said that dozens of inhabitants committed suicide by leaping from the fort’s high walls onto the rocks below.
By the mid 20th century, scientists had discovered a cure for leprosy, and so Spinalonga’s population rapidly dwindled. Its last permanent resident, a benevolent priest, left the island in 1962.
Nomans Land, United States
Nomans Land, or the “original” Martha’s Vineyard, is a small island just a few miles south of the much more familiar Martha’s Vineyard. Throughout the colonial period it was intermittently inhabited, most notably by a Wampanoag community, who left behind a milieu of structures and artifacts. In the 1940s, however, it was co-opted by the U.S. Navy and used as a targeting range for bombers. Now it’s littered with unexploded ordnance, lead, and other toxins, and is completely off-limits to the public. In 1998, management of the island transferred to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and currently serves as refuge for migratory birds.
Unexploded munitions, from its days as a targeting range, litter the small island.
Ross Island, India
First surveyed by British explorer Archibald Blair in the 1790s, Ross Island, located in the Andaman sea nearly a thousand miles east of mainland India, remained largely uninhabited until the mid 19th century. But following the Indian Rebellion of 1857, British colonists designated the island a penal colony, and sent hundreds of “hard-core elements” to serve out their sentences on the remote tropical outpost.
With time, the tropical flora is slowly reclaiming the aging structures on the island.
Here, the British wardens and their prisoners constructed dozens of buildings, and the colony temporarily flourished. But in 1941, an earthquake struck the island, reducing almost all man-made structures to rubble. A mass exodus followed. The following year, the Japanese Army landed on Ross Island, but found it almost deserted. They established a command center and built a series of fortifications, but abandoned it three years later as the allies closed in. It has remained uninhabited ever since.
Okunoshima, Japan
From 1929 to 1945, Okunoshima Island was the site a top-secret poison gas factory. Since the production of chemical weapons was in violation of international law, the Imperial Japanese Army attempted to conceal the existence of the factory by omitting the entire island from official maps. After the war, allied forces eventually discovered the factory, and with it, hundreds of unsupervised rabbits that had been used for testing. The allied forces released these rabbits on the island, and their population rapidly grew.
Today, the island is served by a regular ferry, and even has a hotel, but no permanent human inhabitants. The island’s rabbits are revered, and it is illegal to hunt them, or bring dogs or cats onto the island.
Holland Island, United States
Originally settled by British colonists in the 1600s, Holland Island sits in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay. By the early 20th century, it was home to nearly 400 inhabitants—primarily fishermen and farmers—making it one of the largest island communities in the Chesapeake Bay. But by 1914, the marshy island had begun to erode, and within years, most inhabitants had fled to the mainland. A few intrepid islanders attempted to prolong their stay by building stone walls around the islands, but their efforts were for nought, and the last family abandoned the island in 1918. Today, the gutted remains of many houses can still be seen, although it’s only a matter of time before the waters engulf them entirely.
As the marshy island erodes, the bay slowly swallows up any signs of former habitation.
Clipperton Island, France
Like many islands on this list, Clipperton Island has a lurid history. Prized for its rich guano deposits, Clipperton drew the attention of American, French, British, and Mexican prospectors throughout the 19th century. In 1897, Mexico deployed a warship to annex the island and establish a colony, and by 1914, at least 100 inhabitants—men, women, and children—lived on the island. But when the Mexican Revolution erupted a few years later, their regular food shipments were halted, and one by one, the inhabitants perished of starvation and scurvy. Soon, there was just one man left on the island—a reclusive lighthouse keeper named Victoriano Alvarez—and a handful of women and children. At this point, Alvarez, declared himself king, and set about enslaving, abusing, and executing the remaining colonists. This reign of terror lasted for nearly two years, during which the island’s population dwindled to just three women and eight children, plus Alvarez. Finally, the surviving victims banded together and killed Alvarez. Just days after deposing their dictator, the survivors were rescued by a passing American gunship. No further attempts were made to colonize the island, although it’s now a French territory.
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Poveglia, Italy
Just a few miles from Venice’s stately plazas and palaces sits Poveglia, a lonely island tormented by a long legacy of death and suffering. In the Middle Ages, Poveglia served as a dumping ground for victims of the black plague. As many as 100,000 corpses were tossed into the island’s plague pits and burned, and rumor has it that the island’s soil is 50% human ash.
In the 18th century, the island was converted into a lazaretto, or quarantine station, for diseased traders and travellers arriving in Venice. Incidentally, the word “quarantine” comes from the Italian "quaranta giorni" or forty days—but many pitiable victims were sequestered on Poveglia for years; some, until death.
By the early 20th century, the lazaretto had fallen into disuse. But not for long. In 1922, Venice’s savvy medical officials, keen to capitalize on the island’s natural isolation, converted the hospital into a mental asylum. According to a local legend, one doctor assigned to the island went completely mad, tortured many of his patients, and finally leapt to his death from the island’s bell tower. Regardless of the story's veracity, it certainly speaks to the island’s eerie ambience.
