An urbex map of Europe built on open data
This atlas shows abandoned and disused places in 41 European countries: ghost villages, Cold War bunkers, closed factories and mines, former sanatoriums and hospitals, empty hotels, stations and airfields, churches and castle ruins. All of it comes from OpenStreetMap, the map anyone can edit, and is fetched live when you pick a country. It is a way to explore industrial and military history from your screen. It is not an invitation to go inside.
What the map counts as abandoned
OpenStreetMap marks the state of a feature with tags. The atlas looks for abandoned=yes, disused=yes, ruins=yes, historic=ruins, building=ruins, and the lifecycle prefixes abandoned:* and disused:*. For example, abandoned:amenity=hospital means “this was a hospital”. Abandoned means out of use and not maintained. Disused means out of use but intact, so it could be used again. Those places are marked “(disused)” in their type.
The query uses the country’s actual border. Earlier versions used a rectangle, so a Belgian search also returned places in the Netherlands, Germany and France. If the border query fails because the servers are busy, the atlas falls back to the rectangle and says so under “Places”. Small items that are tagged disused but are not places are filtered out, such as old post boxes, phone boxes, railway signals, poles and hydrants.
Why some countries have more
The counts say as much about the mappers as about the country. Germany, France, the UK and the Netherlands are mapped in great detail, down to single farm buildings. Eastern Europe has many former military and industrial sites, but fewer of them are tagged. Southern Europe has whole abandoned hill villages that often appear as one point. Treat the numbers as “mapped so far”, not as a census.
Urban exploration, laws and safety
In most European countries, entering private property without permission is trespassing or even a criminal offence. Military sites, mines and railway land often have specific bans. Many “abandoned” places have an owner, a guard or cameras. Old buildings can hide asbestos, collapsing floors, open shafts and live electricity. If you go, ask permission, never go alone, and leave the place as you found it. Many sites in the list are on Wikipedia, and there you can read the history without the risk.
Privacy and sources
The atlas runs in your browser. Your location is only used on your device when you press “near me”. It talks to the public Overpass servers for OpenStreetMap data and to Esri for map tiles and satellite imagery. Results are cached in your browser for seven days. Place data © OpenStreetMap contributors, available under the ODbL; exports carry the same license.