Centralia is a borough and near-ghost town in Columbia County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is part of Northeastern Pennsylvania. Its population declined from 1,000 in 1980 to five residents in 2020 because a coal mine fire has been burning beneath the borough since 1962. Centralia, part of the Bloomsburg–Berwick metropolitan area, is the least-populated municipality in Pennsylvania. It is completely surrounded by Conyngham Township.
Centralia as seen from South Street, July 2010
A small part of the Centralia mine fire as it appeared after being exposed during an excavation in 1969
Toxic gas and smoke rising from the ground above the underground fire in 2006
1999 photo showing the abandoned highway and its replacement
A ghost town, deserted city, extinct town, or abandoned city is an abandoned settlement, usually one that contains substantial visible remaining buildings and infrastructure such as roads. A town often becomes a ghost town because the economic activity that supported it has failed or ended for any reason. The town may have also declined because of natural or human-caused disasters such as floods, prolonged droughts, extreme heat or extreme cold, government actions, uncontrolled lawlessness, war, pollution, or nuclear and radiation-related accidents and incidents. The term can sometimes refer to cities, towns, and neighborhoods that, though still populated, are significantly less so than in past years; for example, those affected by high levels of unemployment and dereliction.
Plymouth, Montserrat is the only ghost town that is the capital of a modern political territory. It was rendered uninhabitable and evacuated in 1995, after being inundated with volcanic ash from the eruption of the Soufrière Hills Volcano.
As farms industrialize, smaller farms are no longer economically viable, leading to rural decay.
Prior to the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974, Varosha, now falling into ruin, was a modern tourist area.
Akarmara, a mining town in Abkhazia/Georgia, was abandoned in the early 1990s due to the War in Abkhazia.
