# Largest City to be Completely Abandoned?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/largest-city-to-be-completely-abandoned/393817>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [February 27, 2007, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/largest-city-to-be-completely-abandoned/393817 "2007-02-27T00:04:06Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 4

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**Author:** ![Big\_Norse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/big_norse/32/9954_2.png) [@Big\_Norse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Big_Norse)\
**Post date:** [March 2, 2007, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/largest-city-to-be-completely-abandoned/393817/61 "2007-03-02T21:23:56Z")

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I can’t find a good cite for the population before it happened (the best I got was around a million), but [Nanking](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanking_massacre) losing 300,000 people between December 1937 and February 1938 must be near some kind of record in terms of time frames.

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**Author:** ![Spezza](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a698b9/32.png) [@Spezza](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spezza)\
**Post date:** [March 2, 2007, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/largest-city-to-be-completely-abandoned/393817/62 "2007-03-02T22:21:11Z")

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The 2,000,000 citizens that were forcibly exacuated out of Phnom Penh by the Khmer Rouge on April 17/18, 1975, is still the winner in my book.

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**Author:** ![DevNull](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c89c15/32.png) [@DevNull](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DevNull)\
**Post date:** [March 4, 2007, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/largest-city-to-be-completely-abandoned/393817/63 "2007-03-04T05:09:41Z")

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Varosha is completely abandoned and (was) quite modern.

[http://www.michaeltotten.com/archives/000985.html](http://www.michaeltotten.com/archives/000985.html)

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**Author:** ![dangermom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e274bd/32.png) [@dangermom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dangermom)\
**Post date:** [March 4, 2007, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/largest-city-to-be-completely-abandoned/393817/64 "2007-03-04T05:18:09Z")

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Don’t forget [Mohenjo-Daro](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohenjo-daro) and Harappa.

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**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\
**Post date:** [March 5, 2007, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/largest-city-to-be-completely-abandoned/393817/65 "2007-03-05T16:27:32Z")

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[QUOTE=DevNull]  
Varosha is completely abandoned and (was) quite modern.

[http://www.michaeltotten.com/archives/000985.html](http://www.michaeltotten.com/archives/000985.html)  
[/QUOTE]

> [@](#):
>
> Supposedly, according to Lonely Planet, there is a car dealership somewhere in the city that still has 1974 models in the showroom.

This fantasy of somehow getting in there and driving out a mint condition 1974 Lamborghini is quite a compelling one…

It doesn’t get much more _mondo weirdo_ than this, folks.

> [@](#):
>
> For 31 years Varosha has been uninhabited. Turkey ought to be ashamed of itself. Since the military won’t let me take pictures, I imagine that on some level they are ashamed – or at least a bit embarrassed – by what they have done and are doing. They did not want you to see this.

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