(Roughly) Daily

An ancient city made of intricately carved stone sits silent at the bottom of a lake, a replica of Paris complete with an Eiffel Tower is eerily empty, and a city leveled by disaster has been cordoned off indefinitely as a memorial to those who were lost. China might just be home to more ghost cities than any other nation on earth, and most of them are of the modern variety, as the push for economic progress has led developers to get a bit ahead of themselves constructing vast communities, malls and amusement parks that never caught on with the public…

See them all at Web Urbanist’s “Great Ghost Cities: 7 Eerie Abandoned Wonders of China.”

* Eric Hoffer

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As we listen for an echo, we might recall that it was on this date in 960 that Zhao Kuangyin became Emperor Taizu of Song– the first ruler of the Song Dynasty, a period of Chinese history that lasted more than three centuries.  A distinguished military leader under the Later Zhou Dynasty, Zhao came to power via a coup d’état that forced the young Emperor Gong to abdicate.  During his reign, Zhao reunified most of China proper, effectively ending the chaotic Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period.

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