The abandoned fortified town of Ait-Ben-Haddou in Morocco

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The town of Ait-Ben-Haddou was founded along the former caravan route between the Sahara and Marrakesh in present-day Morocco. The fortified town dates from the 17th century and it's an example of earthen clay architecture, which is also used in Moroccan architecture. 

Ait-Ben-Haddou's giant fortification is made up of six forts (Kasbahs) and nearly fifty palaces which are individual forts. The town contains a mosque, two cemeteries (Jewish and Muslim) and a public square. Most reports mention that only 2-8 families live in the ancient city today while most of the population live in a nearby modern village.

Ait-Ben-Haddou has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1987. Several films and tv series have been shot there including Oedipus Rex, Jesus of Nazareth, The Jewel of the Nile, The Last Temptation of Christ, Gladiator, Babel, Prince of Persia, and Game of Thrones.

* Ait-Ben-Haddou has also been transliterated in English as Aït Benhaddou, Ait Benhaddou, Aït-Ben-Haddou, Ath Benhadu. 

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The deserted hotels of Sharm el Seikh, Egypt

One of the results of the Egyptian Revolution of 2011 and the years of instability that followed, was the collapse of the country's tourism industry. At the southern coast of Sinai peninsula, the 200 km (120 miles) coast was the country's tourism epicenter. Today, where new hotels were constantly being built, the scene is much different. Construction has halted while dozens of hotels remain empty.

Although Sinai was never a stranger to terrorism, ISIS has caused new problems. By the beginning of 2016, a flight ban, imposed after the crash of a Russian airliner, has caused visits in Sharm el Seikh to decline further by 85% and an estimated $170 million loss per month.

Along the coast of Sinai, hotels that are still open have closed down wings or restaurants and operate with limited staff. Their owners are waiting for better days in the future.

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Tour the abandoned Star Wars film sets in Tunisia

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Why would hundreds of Star Wars fans visit the Tunisian desert every year? Because that's the filming location George Lucas chose to film many scenes for his Star Wars movie franchise. Being in the Sahara desert definitely gives you a feeling you're out of this planet which was needed for the movies. The desert also provided inspiration for Lucas. The planet Tatooine was named after the town of Tataouine, located close to a filming location.

Most of the sets are still in relative good state as there was no reason to be taken down due to their location. Star Wars fans have even raised money and worked with locals to restore some of them and today. In 2015 there were reports that Star Wars set were under threat by ISIS, however Tunisian authorities reassured visitors that no such threat exists.

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Abandoned Sinai hotels

Between 2001 and 2004, the Munich artist duo Haubitz + Zoche visited the Egyptian Sinai peninsula and took photos of concrete skeletons of abandoned 5-star hotel complexes for their project Sinai Hotels. 

The reasons for the abandoning of these construction projects at resort sites are many and varied, ranging from bad investment and misappropriated state subsidized loans to diminishing tourism as confidence was undermined by the reports of terrorist attacks.

'Sultan’s Palace’, ‘Sindbad’, ‘Sunestra’ and the ‘Magic Life Imperial’ are the names of some of those would be hotels that now remain abandoned against the background of mountain and desert landscapes. 

'Sinai Hotels' won the German Photobook Prize in 2007. 

SEE ALSO: The deserted hotels of Sharm el Seikh, Egypt // More abandoned hotels around the world // More abandoned places in the desert // More abandoned places in Egypt // LIST OF ALL DESERTED PLACES 
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Haubitz + Zoche

Haubitz + Zoche

Haubitz + Zoche

Haubitz + Zoche

Haubitz + Zoche

Kolmanskop, the ghost town of the desert

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In the Namib desert, a few kilometers away from the Namibian port town of Lüderitz, there's the ghost town of Kolmanskop. Built by Germans in the beginning of the 20th century, Kolmanskop used to house approximately 1,000 diamond miners and their families. As it usually happens though, the town was left abandoned once the diamond field was exhausted. 

The story began in 1908 when German Zacharias Lewala found a diamond while working in the area and showed to his supervisor, the German railway inspector August Stauch. After realizing that this area was rich in diamonds, lots of German miners settled in this area and soon after the German government declared a large area as a "Sperrgebiet", starting to exploit the diamond field.

The town had a hospital, ballroom, power station, school, swimming pool, casino, and even a bowling It had the first x-ray-station in the southern hemisphere, as well as the first tram in Africa. A railway link connected the town to the port of Lüderitz. 

The decline began after the World War II when the diamond-field slowly exhausted, and the town was ultimately abandoned in 1954. In the following decades, the desert covered the streets and the tourists now walk through houses knee-deep in sand.

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The Film City in the heart of the desert

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In the heart of the Qatar desert, deep in the Zakreet peninsula and away from the construction and gridlock of the capital Doha, lays the Film City, an abandoned movie set built as a mock up of an ancient Arabian village. The existence of Film City remains a mystery as no one seems to know why or when exactly it was built. Some say for a big Hollywood production, others for a Qatari soap opera, while others claim it was built for Qatar’s 2022 World Cup promotional video.

SEE ALSO: More abandoned film sets around the world // More abandoned places in the desert // LIST OF ALL DESERTED PLACES 
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