Archives: Atlas Obscuras

BallaGNOMEia

Discover BallaGNOMEia in Balladonia, Australia: Gnomes have taken over a rest stop on Australia's longest straight road.

Spitzer Castle

Discover Spitzer Castle in Beočin, Serbia: A beautiful 19th-century mansion slowly crumbled and became a 'ghost house' after World War II.

Vicus Caprarius

Discover Vicus Caprarius in Rome, Italy: A forgotten "city of water" underneath the famous Trevi district.

Terminillo’s Sword in the Stone

Discover Terminillo's Sword in the Stone in Rieti, Italy: Templar knights fleeing persecution are said to have left this sword in stone as a landmark in 1307.

Rocca Sforzesca

Discover Rocca Sforzesca in Imola, Italy: This castle was once the home of one of the most powerful women of the Renaissance.

The Cobweb Picture

Discover The Cobweb Picture in Chester, England: Chester Cathedral is home to a unique painting crafted on a canvas of cobwebs.

Musee du Compagnonnage

Discover Musee du Compagnonnage in Tours, France: This museum preserves over-the-top masterpieces that once qualified artisans for membership into a medieval guild.

Mummified Bison

Discover Mummified Bison in Washington, D.C.: The 28,000-year-old specimen is remarkably intact.

Schießplatzheide (Firing Range Heath)

Discover Schießplatzheide (Firing Range Heath) in Augsburg, Germany: Deep in the forest next to Augsburg are abandoned bunkers and bullet traps from the region's military past.

Johanneshovs Skans (Johanneshov Sconce)

Discover Johanneshovs Skans (Johanneshov Sconce) in Stockholm, Sweden: Part of an abandoned19th-century fortress hides in plain sight inside a modern office building.

Hotel Ještěd

Discover Hotel Ještěd in Liberec, Czechia: This unusually shaped mountaintop tower looks like a UFO floating over the city.

Crypt of the São Paulo Cathedral

Discover Crypt of the São Paulo Cathedral in São Paulo, Brazil: The crypts are so large they're basically their own underground church.

Abandoned DeJarnette Sanitarium

Discover Abandoned DeJarnette Sanitarium in Staunton, Virginia: A former mental hospital founded in the 1930s by a eugenicist who advocated for the forced sterilization of patients.

Confederate Mound

Discover Confederate Mound in Chicago, Illinois: The final resting place of up to 6,000 Confederate soldiers, the largest mass grave in the Western Hemisphere.

Belhaven Bridge

Discover Belhaven Bridge in Dunbar, Scotland: At high tide this strange footbridge appears to have no purpose whatsoever.

Taira no Masakado’s Grave

Discover Taira no Masakado's Grave in Chiyoda City, Japan: A shrine dedicated to a 10th-century samurai emperor, whose head is not buried on site (contrary to popular belief).

Mya Thein Tan Pagoda

Discover Mya Thein Tan Pagoda in Min Kun, Myanmar (Burma): This magnificent white pagoda was constructed to resemble a sacred Buddhist mountain.

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i
To represent a masterpiece of human creative genius. 261 ii
To exhibit an important interchange of human values, over a span of time or within a cultural area of the world, on developments in architecture or technology, monumental arts, town-planning or landscape design. 480 iii
To bear a unique or at least exceptional testimony to a cultural tradition or to a civilization which is living or which has disappeared. 514 iv
To be an outstanding example of a type of building, architectural or technological ensemble or landscape which illustrates (a) significant stage(s) in human history. 642 ix
To be outstanding examples representing significant on-going ecological and biological processes in the evolution and development of terrestrial, fresh water, coastal and marine ecosystems and communities of plants and animals. 137 v
To be an outstanding example of a traditional human settlement, land-use, or sea-use which is representative of a culture (or cultures), or human interaction with the environment especially when it has become vulnerable under the impact of irreversible change. 172 vi
To be directly or tangibly associated with events or living traditions, with ideas, or with beliefs, with artistic and literary works of outstanding universal significance. (The Committee considers that this criterion should preferably be used in conjunction with other criteria). 256 vii
To contain superlative natural phenomena or areas of exceptional natural beauty and aesthetic importance. 151 viii
To be outstanding examples representing major stages of earth's history, including the record of life, significant on-going geological processes in the development of landforms, or significant geomorphic or physiographic features. 98 x
To contain the most important and significant natural habitats for in-situ conservation of biological diversity, including those containing threatened species of outstanding universal value from the point of view of science or conservation. 168

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