Lost city

A lost city is an urban settlement that fell into terminal decline and became extensively or completely uninhabited, with the consequence that the site's former significance was no longer known to the wider world. The locations of many lost cities have been forgotten, but some have been rediscovered and studied extensively by scientists. Recently abandoned cities or cities whose location was never in question might be referred to as ruins or ghost towns. Smaller settlements may be referred to as abandoned villages. The search for such lost cities by European explorers and adventurers in Africa, the Americas, and Southeast Asia from the 15th century onward eventually contributed to the development of archaeology.

Lost cities generally fall into two broad categories: those where all knowledge of the city's existence was forgotten before it was rediscovered, and those whose memory was preserved in myth, legend, or historical records but whose location was lost or at least no longer widely recognized.

Reasons for loss

Cities may become lost for a variety of reasons including natural disasters, economic or social upheaval, or war.

The Incan capital city of Vilcabamba was destroyed and depopulated during the Spanish conquest of Peru in 1572. The Spanish did not rebuild the city, and the location went unrecorded and was forgotten until it was rediscovered through a detailed examination of period letters and documents.

Troy was a city located in northwest Anatolia in what is now Turkey.