Yumen Ghost Town

After Kuomintang’s loss in the Chinese Civil War and the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949, the fledgling communist nation set out a large-scale industrialization effort with a high demand for oil. Until the discovery of Daqing Oil Field in Heilongjiang Province in 1959, Yumen provided the much-needed industrial blood for the country. Yumen quickly expanded and the population peaked around 300,000 in the 1980s, with 100,000 oil workers. The ghost town today preserves what’s left of the once vibrant, industrialized urban community that abandoned the city once the oil dried up. The city has a population of about 15,000 today.