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Ghost towns are almost stereotypically common in mining areas: Colorado, Arizona, Nevada, Montana, and California in the western United States, though they can be observed as far south as Louisiana. They are also seen in British Columbia in western Canada, and parts of Australia. Old mining camps that have lost most of their population at some stage of their history, such as Central City, Colorado; Aspen, Colorado; Virginia City, Montana; Tombstone, Arizona or Cripple Creek, ColoradoCripple Creek is a city in Teller County, Colorado; it is the county seat. Cripple Creek is 24 miles south west of Colorado Springs, Colorado on the southern slopes of Pike's Peak. It was the most fabulous gold mining camp of Colorado. View of Cripple Cre are sometimes included in the category, although they are active towns and cities today.

Other factors leading to abandonment of towns include natural resources such as water no longer being available, railroads and highwayA highway is a major road within a city, or linking several cities together. It includes roads known as interstate highway, freeway, motorway and autobahn, where a full description varies by country. Generally, a highway is a road which has multiple laness bypassing or no longer accessing the town, shifting economic activity elsewhere, human intervention such as highway and river rerouting (see Aral SeaThe Aral Sea is an endorheic inland sea in Central Asia; it lies between Kazakhstan in the north and Karakalpakstan, an autonomous region of Uzbekistan, in the south. Since the 1960s, the Aral Sea has been shrinking, as the rivers that feed it were divert), and nuclear disasters (see ChernobylChernobyl (Official Ukrainian: Chornobyl , Russian Chernobyl ) is a city in northern Ukraine, near the border with Belarus. It was a major communications node and important centre of trade and commerce, especially in 19th century. The city is located 20 k). Chance significant fatality from epidemicAn epidemic is generally a widespread disease that affects many individuals in a population. An epidemic may be restricted to one locale or may even be global ( pandemic). An outbreak of a disease is defined as being epidemic, however, not by how many mems has also produced ghost towns; for example, some places in eastern ArkansasArkansas [akns] is a southern state in the southern United States. The 2000 census was 2,673,400. postal abbreviation is AR. It was admitted in 1836. USS Arkansas was named in honor of this state. History The early French explorers of the state gave it it were abandoned after near-total morbidity during the Spanish FluThe Spanish Flu (also known as the Great Influenza Pandemic the 1918 Flu Epidemic and La Gripe was an unusually severe and deadly strain of influenza, a viral infectious disease, that killed some 25 million to 40 million people (possibly significantly mor pandemic.

Ghost towns may also be created when land is expropriated by a government and everyone living there is told to leave, such as when NASA needed a rocket propulsion testing center and built the John C. Stennis Space Center in Mississippi, which required a very large (approx. 500 square kilometers) surrounding buffer zone because of the loud noise and potential dangers associated with testing huge rockets. This created mysterious abandoned communities and roads overgrown in the middle of the forest. There are also underwater ghost towns brought about by the building of dams.

Some ghost towns are tourist attractions, especially those that preserve interesting architecture. Visiting, writing about, and photographing them is a minor industry. Other ghost towns may be overgrown, difficult to access, or illegal to visit.

A recent attempt to declare an "Official Ghost Town" in California collapsed when the adherents of the town of Calico, in Southern California, and those of Bodie, in Northern California, could not come to an agreement as to which of their favorites was more deserving.

Abandoned bank building in Rhyolite, Nevada

See also: List of ghost towns