The controversial Moroccan Wall, or The Berm, is a system of 3m-high walls at least 2,500km long that was built to completely divide the entire country of Western Sahara. Constructed by Moroccan forces between 1980 and 1987, Morocco considers the…

These buildings are what make up Molodyozhnaya, one of the original Soviet research stations in Antarctica, and the site of an unusually large number of plane crashes. The research station was established way back in 1962 to study meteorology, and…

Written in the sands of the Atacama Desert, Chile, are the words “ni pena ni miedo” which translate more or less as “No shame nor fear”, and together they form what must surely be the world’s largest poem. While we’ve…

This is the first in an occasional series where we’ll be looking at some of the world’s most interesting abandoned places. In 1908, diamonds were discovered in the Namib Desert, and one of the towns that sprang up to provide…

Here in Marfa, TX, we can see the patterns of 15 Untitled Works in Concrete, a massive concrete installation at the Chinati Foundation, a contemporary art museum conceived and founded by the artist responsible – Donald Judd. Judd was a…

In 1998, the tiny truck-stop village of Ilakaka in Madagascar was transformed into a bustling mining town, and one of the most dangerous places in the country. The reason for this dramatic change was the discovery of massive sapphire deposits…