Atlas of Improbable Places: A Journey to the World's Most Unusual Corners

by Travis Elborough

Overview

‘This engrossing book traverses the heights and depths, the beauty and terror, of our world.’ - THE OBSERVER
 
Travis Elborough goes in search of the obscure and bizarre, the beautiful and arcane. His unique atlas shows you the modern world from surprising new vantage points. Discover the secret Soviet city of Zheleznogorsk and the church tower of San Juan Parangaricutiro, miraculously still standing as the sole survivor of a town sunk by lava. Explore the underground realms of Beijing and Berlin, dug for refuge and espionage, and the floating worlds of remote Palmerston and the macabre Island of Dolls.
 
The truths and myths behind these hidden lairs, forgotten cities and  improbable wonders are as varied as the destinations themselves. These curious places are not just extraordinary sights but reflections on our relationship with the world around us.
 
‘Atlas of Improbable Places has that rare, through-the-wardrobe quality. It is a delightful compendium of the strangest places on the planet.’- DAILY TELEGRAPH
‘Understatedly expressive.’ - NEW YORK TIMES
‘Deeply researched – and really worth your time.’ - GQ

 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780711264014
Publisher:	White Lion Publishing
Publication date:	07/06/2021
Series:	Unexpected Atlases Series
Pages:	208
Sales rank:	229,932
Product dimensions:	5.25(w) x 7.75(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Travis Elborough has been a freelance writer, author and cultural commentator for more than a decade now. His book include The Bus We Loved, a history of the Routemaster bus;The Long Player Goodbye, a hymn to vinyl records; and Wish You Were Here, a survey of the British beside the seaside. Elborough is a regular contributor to the Observer and the Guardian but has written for the Times, Sunday Times, New Statesman, the Oldie, TATE etc., BBC History magazine and Kinfolk among others and frequently appears on BBC Radio 4 and Five Live.

Table of Contents

Introduction 15

Dream Creations

Flevopolder 19

The region reclaimed from the sea

Zheleznogorsk 23

Former closed Soviet city

Free Christiania 25

Squatter-city

Auroville 28

1960s Utopian city

Slab City 31

The squatter metropolis

Portmeirion 34

The Village

Zvyozdny Gorodok 37

Star City

Hearst Castle 40

Randolph Hearst's Xanadu-esque home

Deserted Destinations

Teufelsberg 47

Abandoned U.S. spy station

Presidio Modelo 51

Cuba's most notorious former penitentiary

Battleship Island 53

Deserted mining settlement

No Man's Land Fort 56

A long shunned coastal bulwark

The Lost City Of San Juan Parangaricutiro 58

Abandoned after the eruption of 1943

Humberstone And Santa Laura 60

Redundant saltpetre works

Wonderland 63

Abandoned Disneyland-style theme park

Oradour-Sur-Glane 66

Village left abandoned since the Second World War

Muynak 68

Drained port

Wittenoom 70

Asbestos-ridden industrial town

ANI, KARS 73

Ruins of one-time capital of the Armenian Empire

Concrete City 76

Garden city of the anthracite region

Varosha 79

Abandoned tourist resort

Architectural Oddities

Maryhill Stonehenge 83

Concrete Stonehenge

Spijkenisse 87

The 'real' fictional euro bridges

Kabayan 90

The Ibaloi mummy caves

Santurio Madonna Della Corona 92

Chapel hangs midway down a sheer cliffside

London Bridge, Lake Havasu 94

The 1831 London Bridge

The African Renaissance Monument 96

Controversial symbol of independence

Ten Commandments Mountain 100

The Fields of the Wood

Floating Worlds

The Palm 105

An artificial island paradise

The Kingdom Of Redonda 107

Uninhabited Caribbean island

Poveglia Island 111

Former plague quarantine island

Great Blasket 114

Uninhabited since 1954

Holland Island 118

Island slowly being eroded by the water

Palmerston 122

A community formed in its founder's image

Wrangel Island 125

A place frozen in time

Mount Roraima 128

The Lost World

Ross Island 131

British Indian penal settlement

Hirta 134

The Edge of the World

Otherworldly Spaces

Aokigahara 139

The Demon Forest

Colma 141

City of the dead

Leap Castle 144

The World's most haunted residence

Darvaza Crater 148

Door to Hell

The Hill Of Crosses 150

Home to some 100,000 crosses

The Island Of Dolls 153

A terrifying attraction

Subterranean Realms

The Underground Postal Railway 159

Rail Mail

Cold War Spy Tunnel 162

The telephone tapping centre

Beijing Underground 165

Bunkers to beat the bomb

Moose Jaw 168

Illicit tunnels

Cincinnati 172

Abandoned subway

ZKP Tagansky, Aka Bunker 42 175

Cold War communications bunker

Puerto Princesa 178

Subterranean river

Select Bibliography 183

Index 187

Acknowledgements 191

Picture Credits 192

Editorial Reviews

…understatedly expressive…and adorned with clean-lined, pastel-hued maps by the cartographer Alan Horsfield.

The New York Times Book Review - Liesl Schillinger

If you are one of those people whose mind is beginning to wander long before the bread sauce has gone cold, there should be only one book on your Christmas wish list this year… Atlas of Improbable Places by Travis Elborough and Alan Horsfield has that rare, through-the-wardrobe quality. It is a delightful compendium of the strangest places on the planet…”  —Daily Telegraph

“ ‘A compendium of unlikely, curious and plain odd locales’ seems something of a natural habitat for Travis Elborough, a cultural historian with a touch of the Betjemans and a lick of the Meades about him. From deserted mining towns in Nagasaki to the ever-decreasing Holland Island in Maryland, he and cartographer Horsfield do us a great service: making the world feel bigger.”
 —Monocle magazine

“non-formulaic, deeply researched – and really worth your time.  Co-author and cartographer Alan Horsfield brings a scientific rigour to its scope and design.” 
 —The Book Club, GQ magazine

“This is a deliciously gloomy, sometimes spooky and often kooky collection of essays…”
 —The Age, Australia

“The author makes a witty and well-informed guide to some of the world’s most curious and bizarre locations.”
 —World of Cruising magazine

“With its identical towns, global corporations and digital landscapes, the modern world can seem quite uninspiring. But, for the British author Travis Elborough, interesting places do exist, you just need a way to find them.”  
 —Jocks & Nerds

“informative and enthusiastic, scholarly and amusing….once started it’s nigh on impossible to put down.”

—Hackney Citizen

“an elegant, atmospheric remedy for creeping world-weariness.”
 —The Lady

“Elborough’s worldwide search for the curious, the surprising, the forgotten gems or the just plain eccentric is complemented splendidly by Horsfield’s impeccable maps of those places that are so far off the beaten track that their very existence is virtually unknown - or even officially restricted. ...a worthy addition to any bookshelf, coffee table or E-reader…”
 —Aga Living

“Atlas of Improbable Places: A Journey to the World’s Most Unusual Corners by Travis Elborough, with maps by Alan Horsfield, is a curated guide to places that just don’t quite make sense. Elborough organized the book by theme– “Dream Creations,” “Floating Worlds,” “Otherworldly Spaces,” and more– rather than geography, which makes it easy to decide what genre of oddity or improbability you want to consider based on your mood. The large black and white photographs, coupled with beautifully simple maps, gives this book an air of sophistication and inspires more than a little awe.”
 —Book Riot

“this engrossing book traverses the heights and depths, the beauty and terror, of our world.”—The Observer

“Guaranteed to whet the appetite of all budding urban explorers and teenagers wondering where to go on their gap year.”

—Metro

“The photos are a treasure trove. The paper is divine. Travis Elborough’s writing is sublime, and the cartographic skills of Alan Horsfield make this a gift you will not want to part with. So buy yourself something nice this Christmas.

—DJ Magazine

From the Publisher