Cities
The peculiar logic behind how metropolises grow, die, and reinvent themselves.
72 articlesLatest Cities
Zheleznogorsk/Krasnoyarsk-26: Siberia’s Secret Nuclear City
Explore the hidden history of Krasnoyarsk-26, a Soviet secret city built to produce weapons-grade plutonium, its luxurious gilded cage existence, and the devastating environmental legacy that outlasted the Cold War.
The Most Extreme Prison in Russia
Discover Black Dolphin, Russia's most notorious supermax prison. From its brutal conditions to its depraved inmates, explore what makes this modern-day gulag inescapable.
Alnwick Poison Garden: The Deadliest Plants in the World
Explore England's Alnwick Poison Garden, where deadly plants require government permission to grow and visitors risk fainting among nature's most dangerous killers.
The Boötes Void: The Biggest, Emptiest Thing in the Universe
Discover the Boötes Void, a 330 million light-year expanse of near-nothingness that changed our understanding of cosmic structure, and explore the theories behind this mysterious region of space.
Cactus Dome: The Nuclear Tomb in Paradise
The Cactus Dome on Runit Island contains 111,000 cubic yards of radioactive waste from US nuclear testing. As sea levels rise and concrete cracks, this Cold War tomb threatens to release its poison into the Pacific.
The Caribbean Capital City... That is a Ghost Town
How Mariupol, Ukraine's tenth-largest city, was besieged, destroyed, and rebuilt as a Russian city—erasing its people, culture, and identity in one of the most brutal urban campaigns of the 21st century.
More in Cities
Pakistan's Brick Kilns: Millions Trapped in Slavery
Over 3.2 million people remain enslaved in Pakistan's brick kilns through the peshgi debt bondage system, officially abolished in 1992. Children as young as five work alongside their families, inheriting debts they never signed.
Pitcairn Island: The Devastating Price of Paradise
Discover the dark history of Pitcairn Island, from the HMS Bounty mutineers who founded this remote paradise to the shocking sexual abuse scandal that exposed the devastating price of isolation.
Pripyat: The City Completely Abandoned in Three Hours.
How the Soviet nuclear city of Pripyat went from a thriving community of 49,000 people to a radioactive ghost town in just three hours after the Chernobyl disaster.
The Prison Where Jeffrey Epstein Met His End.
An in-depth look at the Metropolitan Correctional Center New York, where Jeffrey Epstein died in August 2019, examining the facility's history, security failures, and the lingering questions surrounding his death.
Red Village: The Last Shtetl in the World.
Discover Qirmizi Qesebe, the world's last surviving Shtetl, where Mountain Jews preserve centuries-old traditions in Azerbaijan's Caucasus Mountains, sustained by an unlikely concentration of billionaire benefactors.
Red Zones, Northern France: The Lasting Scars of World War I
More than a century after WWI, France's Red Zones remain contaminated by unexploded ordnance, chemical weapons, and toxins—an enduring testament to industrial warfare's devastating impact on the land itself.