The Sunken World Hiding Under the Water's Surface

27 drowned places that used to be above ground.

27 Places

There is an entire submerged world hidden just below sea level, largely out of sight to terrestrial beings today. The Earth’s shores are lined with sunken cities, flooded crypts, drowned forests, and submerged structures that have been lost underwater over the millennia, overtaken by nature or human development.

Rising sea levels and flooding caused by earthquakes, landslides, changing tides, melting glaciers, or manmade dams have wiped entire villages off the map. And sometimes, when the water recedes, these submerged cities and landscapes reemerge from the depths, an eerie glimpse at the invisible sunken world.

Jal Mahal

Located in the middle of a 16th-century manmade reservoir, the “Water Palace” only appears to be one story high, but there are four more levels hidden beneath the water.

Chris White

Added by Chris White

Vagli Sopra, Italy

Lago di Vagli

This Tuscan lake hides a 13th-century town that was flooded with the building of a dam, lost beneath the waters. But not forever. The village has reemerged four times, whenever the waters are drained for maintenance.

Added by xyz123

Saty, Kazakhstan

Kaindy Lake

This idyllic mountain lake formed after an earthquake caused a major landslide, creating a natural dam that filled the valley with rainwater. Dead bleached spruce trees now jut ghost-like out of the water.

Added by Tawsam

Rye, New Hampshire

Sunken Forests of Rye

In two places along New Hampshire's coast, if the tide is right, you can see the stumps of a forest that drowned when the Ice Age glaciers retreated.

John Pittman

Added by John Pittman

Golubac, Serbia

Golubac Fortress

A medieval castle that withstood years of battle is now sliding off the hills into the Danube, thanks to rising river levels from a hydroelectric dam that submerged the outer walls along the lower bank.

serflac

Added by serflac

The Flooded Crypt of San Zaccaria

As can be expected from a centuries-old building in Venice, this beautiful church’s crypt is partially filled with a permanent level of standing water from the surrounding canals.

Added by zackofalltrades

The Sunken City of Baia

The ancient ruins of Baia were drowned by the rising water level caused by the same volcanic vents that once drew the Roman elite to the bay city.

SkareMedia

Added by SkareMedia

East Sussex, England

Seven Sisters Cliffs

These stark white cliffs were spat up by the ocean in prehistoric times, and are now slowly being retaken by it. As the sea pounds the base of the cliffs each day, erosion is causing them to fall chunk-by-chunk back into the water.

leocorte

Added by leocorte

Catarman, Philippines

Sunken Cemetery

A volcano eruption caused this cemetery, and the capital city surrounding it, to sink below sea level. Only a giant cross rising up out of the water marks where this place of rest once was.

Added by PrincessCee

Brighton, England

Remains of the Royal Suspension Chain Pier

Half-drowned wooden stumps and stone blocks, the remains of a Victorian amusement pier that was washed away by a storm, are slowly revealed at low tide.

EricGrundhauser

Added by EricGrundhauser

Forest of Borth

Bits of a 4,500-year-old forest are slowly being revealed from beneath the sands of a Welsh beach, after a massive storm removed tons of sand from the shore. The buried forest has rekindled the longstanding myth of a sunken Welsh civilization.

EricGrundhauser

Added by EricGrundhauser

Kaleüçağız Köyü, Turkey

Kekova Island Sunken Ruins

Hidden just under the waters around this Turkish island are the ruins of a once-great ancient city, hit by a series of violent earthquakes that sank it beneath the waves in the 2nd century.

kasgulet

Added by kasgulet

Port Royal, Jamaica

Sunken Pirate City at Port Royal

Nature took her revenge on the “wickedest city in the world" when a devastating earthquake hit Jamaica in 1692.

Annetta Black

Added by Annetta Black

Los Angeles, California

Sunken City

In 1929, a landslide on the California coast caused a neighborhood of exclusive homes to tumble into the ocean.

Added by Bswanson

Istanbul, Turkey

Basilica Cisterns of Istanbul

A subterranean marvel was discovered hidden under the streets of Istanbul: the long-forgotten palatial cisterns of the Byzantine Empire. Fish swam under the vaulted ceilings of this ancient artificial lake, nicknamed the “Sunken Palace.”

Annetta Black

Added by Annetta Black

Uribante, Venezuela

The Drowned Church of Potosi

A Gothic church once submerged by the damming of a river is now hauntingly visible as the water recedes, revealed what had been concealed for more than two decades.

Mark Casey

Added by Mark Casey

Flooded Crypt of San Francesco

An architectural masterpiece recognized as one of the most lovely old world churches, this basilica unfortunately sits on soft marshland in a city believed to be slowly sinking. The basement crypt has been flooded by the surrounding waters and is now a shallow, underground goldfish pond.

St. Petersburg, Florida

Sunken Gardens

A Florida plumber drained a lake to plant this garden in the fertile soil that lay 15 feet down at its bottom, creating a luxuriant botanical garden below sea level.

Added by Marie Ginga

Bezidu Nou, Romania

Flooded Village of Bezidu Nou

This Romanian village may have been drowned, but it is far from forgotten The spire of the town’s iconic church pierces the surface of the reservoir.

Added by Nick S

Campanile di Curon

This small alpine town was demolished and flooded shortly after WWII by an artificial lake that freezes over each winter, making it possible to walk up to the bell tower that juts out from the buried village.

emanuelemannocci

Added by emanuelemannocci

Thistle Ghost Town

A massive landslide, the costliest in U.S. history, dammed two creeks, flooding and destroying most of this once-flourishing Western ranching town.

Added by Liddell

Drowned Village of Vilarinho da Furna

During particularly dry spells in Portugal’s Minho region, the barren walls of a 2,000-year-old town flooded by a manmade dam emerge from beneath the water.

serflac

Added by serflac

Vilanova de Sau, Spain

Sant Romà de Sau

The Catalonian government created a dam and reservoir that completely submerged a village that had been inhabited for a millennium. But the pointed spire of the town church can still be seen above the water, and during periods of drought, the entire church emerges on dry land.

serflac

Added by serflac

Waldeck, Germany

The Drowned Convent and Village of Berich

As lake waters recede, a German village flooded right off the map reemerges after more than a hundred years.

Christine Williamson

Added by Christine Williamson

Tambon Nong Lu, Thailand

Wat Saam Prasob, the Sunken Temple

After the construction of a dam flooded this Thai village, the only structure that remains today is the temple, which is almost entirely submerged during the rainy season.

makalu57

Added by makalu57

Pernambuco, Brazil

Old Petrolandia Church

The haunting peak of an old church is all that remains of a drowned Brazilian city, emerging from the reservoir of the state’s largest hydroelectric dam.

Chris White

Added by Chris White

Vysoký Újezd, Czechia

Velka Amerika

A huge limestone quarry got larger and larger, forming a massive gash in the Earth. The hole flooded with water after the mining stopped, creating a still blue lake at the bottom of the gorge.

Added by clarkbhm