There's something about places of ruin and abandonment that you just can't tear your eyes away from.

Whether they were left thousands of years ago or very recently, these places are surrounded by questions that you want answers to.

And the bigger the place, the bigger the questions.

So with that, let's explore some of the world's largest abandoned cities, towns, and places.

It's not often that a capital city is also a total ghost town, but that's exactly what Plymouth

is to the island on Montserrat.

Despite only being 102 square kilometers, this Caribbean island was once home to over 13,000

people.

Then the earth-shattering events of July 1995 changed everything. A previously dormant

Sufriere Hills volcano in the southern part of the island became active, huge eruptions

and heaps of ash descended on the city and surrounding settlements, forcing all residents

to evacuate. The continuing eruptions over the next two years meant that over

8,000 people were eventually forced to leave. In 1997, a series of devastating eruptions

triggered catastrophic pyroclastic flows and Lahars, which burned the town and buried

its remains under 4.6 feet of ash.

From that point, the southern half of the island was placed under an exclusion zone

because of the continuing volcanic activity.

The destruction of Plymouth caused huge economic problems for the island,

and by the end of 1997, fewer than 1,200 people remain there, and

the exclusion zone is still in place.

To this day, Plymouth is known as the Pompeii of the Caribbean, so here's a note to

any thrill-seeking tourists looking to visit.

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