Mount Vesuvius in AD 79 buried the city in volcanic ash. It was accidentally rediscovered in 1749 and excavated, revealing a time capsule of city life during the era of the

Roman Empire.

It’s not just ancient cities that vanish, however. The following collection includes a city that disappeared just this past August. Even as the seven billion residents of Earth begin

to run out of physical space to populate, there are virtual places to be abandoned – former online frontiers such as Geocities: The Deleted City

There are many different ways a city can disappear: It can fall victim to catastrophe, become submerged by rising water or simply be zoned out of existence. In some cases,

no one knows why a once-thriving city was wiped off the map. Here are five of the most fascinating vanished cities, located across the globe:

Centralia, Pennsylvania

centralia, Penn., a former coal-mining town, became a victim of toxic conditions - it's nearly empty.

Photo: Derik Moore