There are countless beautiful destinations to visit around the world. But some places are either too dangerous, too protected, or too mysterious to explore.

Several locations across the globe—from man-made buildings and structures to natural habitats that contain dangerous species, religious mysteries, and secrets—make these areas forbidden to outsiders.

10 The Red Zone
France

Not all scenes in France are made of rolling green hills filled with gorgeous villages. In fact, there is one deserted area that has been forbidden for nearly a century. In a region near Verdun, France, lies a virgin forest known as the Zone Rouge (aka the Red Zone). Nobody lives there, nothing has been built there, and it is actually forbidden to enter.

Before World War I, Verdun was mainly farmland. The area quickly changed during the war after millions of rounds of artillery shells were fired. The ground was churned up, the trees were smashed, and the towns were destroyed by explosives. The war ended in 1918 and left the villages a casualty of war.

The French government considered the cost of rehabilitating the land but ultimately decided to relocate the local villagers. All the shells and munitions were left in the area, and it was deemed Zone Rouge.

The 1,190-square-kilometer (460 mi²) area is still strictly prohibited by law from public entry and agricultural use. Authorities are working to clear the land. However, at the current rate, many believe that it could take 300–700 years to complete or it may never be fully cleared.^[1]

9 Fort Knox
Kentucky

One of the best-kept mysteries in the US is located just 48 kilometers (30 mi) southwest of Louisville. The United States Bullion Depository (aka Fort Knox) is stacked with glittering gold bricks . . . we think. Very few people have entered the “gold fortress,” leaving many unanswered questions about the location.

Construction of Fort Knox was completed in 1936, and it sits on a 109,000-acre US Army post. Gold was shipped in at that time by trains manned by machine gunners. Then it was loaded onto army trucks protected by a US Cavalry brigade.^[2]

Just to be clear: Technically, Fort Knox (the US Army post) is adjacent to the US Bullion Depository. But the term “Fort Knox” is often used to refer to the gold vault building.

The US Constitution and the Bill of Rights were both stored there for short periods. The US government figures that the United States Bullion Depository holds nearly 4,582 metric tons of gold, which is worth more than $175 billion. The facility has one of the most advanced security systems known. What goes on there is mostly a secret, which is how the phrase “as secure as Fort Knox” originated.

8 North Sentinel Island

As hard as it is to believe, there are still “uncontacted” indigenous groups, which means that they maintain no contact with modern civilization. The Sentinelese people of North Sentinel Island are one of those few remaining uncontacted tribes.

In 1991, an outside expedition from India floated coconuts in the water toward the island inhabited by the Sentinelese, who are known to be hostile to foreigners. On two such trips, an Indian team made contact. The Sentinelese wanted the unfamiliar coconuts, but they did not really welcome the outsiders.^[3]

It is estimated that about 80–150 people live on the island, and their language isn’t known to any outsiders. Little is known about the tribe, which keeps them a mystery to many. But we do know that they don’t care much for company.

In 2018, a US missionary attempted to contact the Sentinelese people but was quickly killed by bow and arrow. The group has made it clear for years that they have no interest in making new friends.

In 1896, a convict from the Great Andaman Island Penal Colony escaped on a makeshift raft and eventually washed ashore on North Sentinel Island. His remains were found days later with a cut throat and several arrow wounds. It’s clear that the Sentinelese don’t want any contact, and it’s best to leave it that way.

7 Chapel Of The Ark Of The Covenant
Ethiopia

One of the most sought-after artifacts from the Bible is the Ark of the Covenant. The legendary object was built around 3,000 years ago to house the stone tablets containing the Ten Commandments. The Ark vanished from history after the Babylonian Empire conquered the Israelites. Nobody really knows if it was destroyed, captured, or hidden.

According to Ethiopian lore, the Ark of the Covenant is located at the St. Mary of Zion Cathedral (aka the Chapel of the Ark) in Aksum. The church only allows one man to see the Ark, and he is a monk who acts as the guardian of the artifact.

Although some reports claim that the Aksum object is only a replica of the Ark, nobody else is even permitted to enter the chapel to study the artifact, making it a forbidden place that you wish you could visit.^[4]

6 Snake Island

Around 150 kilometers (93 mi) south of downtown Sao Paulo is Ilha da Queimada Grande, better known as Snake Island. The island sits about 40 kilometers (25 mi) off the coast of Brazil, and humans are forbidden from entering the island. Snake Island got the name from the various snakes lurking across the island. Researchers believe that there is about one deadly snake for every 0.09 square meter (1 ft²) on the island.

The island is home to the golden lancehead, a unique species of the pit viper, which is known as one of the deadliest serpents in the world. They can grow to be over 0.5 meters (1.5 ft) long, and it is estimated that anywhere from 2,000 to 4,000 of these deadly snakes occupy the island.

A lancehead is so venomous that a human would die within an hour of being bitten. These vipers are responsible for more deaths than any other snake in North and South America. It may be best that this island stays off-limits to visitors.^[5]

5 Mirny Diamond Mine

One of the largest man-made excavated holes in the world is found at Mir Mine (aka Mirny Diamond Mine). The enormous pit is located in Eastern Siberia and is the second-largest man-made hole in the world.

The diamond-rich deposit was found in 1955, and it is now more than 520 meters (1,700 ft) deep and more than 1,200 meters (3,900 ft) wide. Joseph Stalin ordered the construction of the mine to satisfy the Soviet Union’s need for diamonds.

During the peak years, the mine produced more than 10 million carats of diamonds annually. Open mining ceased in 2001, but underground mining is continued at the location.

The airspace above the mine is off-limits to helicopters after stories emerged about aircraft being sucked in due to downward air flow. But those claims have never been proved. The town is strictly off-limits to outsiders, though, so don’t expect to get a glimpse of this diamond in the rough.^[6]

4 Tomb Of Qin Shi Huang

Deep in the hills of central China, the country’s first emperor has lain for more than two millennia. The secret tomb of Qin Shi Huang was discovered in 1974 after some farmers stumbled across it while digging wells. They dug out a life-size terra-cotta soldier, but they didn’t realize that it would be just one of thousands of pieces of history at the site.

Archaeologists have excavated the site for nearly four decades and have uncovered about 2,000 clay soldiers. Scientists have not yet touched the central tomb, though, which contains the remains of Qin Shi Huang.

Many believe that the tomb is filled with many other treasures such as precious stones. Chinese authorities are the only ones allowed near the area, and it is up to them to decide if anyone ever gets to enter the mysterious tomb.^[7]

3 Svalbard Global Seed Vault

Halfway between Norway and the North Pole lies the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. It is tucked away deep inside a mountain on a remote island in Svalbard. It is the world’s largest seed storage and is home to crates of seeds for safe and secure long-term storage in cold and dry rock vaults. The vault holds tens of thousands of varieties of essential food crops and more than 4,000 plant species.

It is a long-term seed storage facility that was built to withstand the effects of man-made and natural disasters. The purpose of the vault is to store duplicates of seeds from the world’s crop collections. If nuclear war or global warming were to kill crops, nations could request seeds from the vault to restart their agricultural processes.

In 2018, the Norwegian government proposed to allocate 100 million NOK (roughly $12.7 million) to upgrade the seed vault to help safeguard the genetic material it contains.^[8]

2 Bohemian Grove

Each July, a group of very rich and powerful men gather at a 2,700-acre campground in Monte Rio, California, for two weeks to hold private meetings, indulge in alcoholic beverages, and who knows what else. Bohemian Grove is the name of the secret campground that belongs to the gentlemen’s club known as the Bohemian Club.

According to rumors, the only way to join the Bohemian Club is to be invited by members or join a waiting list decades long. There is also a $25,000 initiation fee along with yearly dues.^[9]

There are currently around 2,500 members, with many of them showing up to enjoy their down time at the campground that features 118 camps, a man-made lake, and a towering Owl Shrine. Some of the past and present members of the secretive group include Gerald Ford, Clint Eastwood, Bing Crosby, Merv Griffin, Ronald Reagan, and George W. Bush.

1 Surtsey
Iceland

Surtsey is a volcanic island off the southern coast of Iceland. It’s one of the world’s newest islands and was named after the Norse fire god, Surtur. In 1963, it emerged from the Atlantic Ocean after a fiery eruption. Columns of ash were sent into the air almost 9,200 meters (30,000 ft). For nearly four years after the eruption, the volcanic core built up the island with elevations around 152 meters (500 ft).^[10]

The island is now home to a long-term biological research program to study the colonization process of new land by plant and animal life. It was declared a nature reserve in 1965, and in 2008, UNESCO declared it a World Heritage Site. Surtsey is restricted to the public and is still only open to a handful of scientists who study the island.

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In cities the majority of space is off-limits. Parks and streets may account for up to half the total area, but when you factor in the vertical axis—the floors inside buildings (many of them empty)—you get a different picture. And that’s just the space that we know about. Often there’s a lot more underground.

In order of size, here are 10 of the most spectacular subterranean sights you’re forbidden from seeing or, in some cases, even from knowing they exist.

10. Mumbai’s imperial underworld

When an occupying force takes over your country, it tends to cut you out of the loop. Hence, whenever Indian construction workers find structures under cities once controlled by the British, they don’t know what they were built for. The vault beneath Kolkata’s National Library, for instance, might have been anything from a treasury to a torture chamber—or, as it eventually turned out, just part of the building’s foundations. 

Mumbai has a veritable underworld of abandoned imperial structures, from the 13-room bunker under Raj Bhavan (the seat of city government) to the kilometer-long tunnel under the old General Post Office.

Another mystery was unearthed as recently as 2022: a 200-meter tunnel under Mumbai’s JJ Hospital, a building whose foundations were laid by the British governor. Appearing on no maps, it was only discovered in a water leak survey. And it was blocked at one end so it wasn’t clear where it once led. While it’s thought to have been to a neighboring hospital, it remains something of a mystery for now—as does the number of underground structures that remain to be found in Mumbai.

9. LA’s prohibition partyways

While the rest of America endured its first War on Drugs—the doomed-to-fail prohibition of alcohol—the mayor of LA kept the hooch flowing through a network of underground service tunnels. These were also the routes by which the flappers and dapper gents of the city’s roaring party scene got from one bar to the next without hassle. Originally built as service tunnels, and for a subway to ease traffic on the surface, they ran for more than 17 kilometers connecting basements converted to speakeasies.

One such bar was the King Eddy Saloon. Established almost 20 years before Prohibition, it moved underground to survive—transforming its above-ground premises into a piano store. Others include the Edison, in the basement of the city’s first privately owned power plant, and Cole’s, under the Pacific Electric building. Patrons of all these establishments, armed with a password, stumbled around wasted, completely unseen by police and paparazzi.

Despite their historic significance, the passages and basements are now closed to the public and even largely unmapped. Many are flooded and crumbling. Just like in the old days, however, those in the know can find their way in—as evidenced by the tunnels’ graffiti. According to Atlas Obscura, there’s an “easy-to-miss elevator” on Temple Street. And there’s also, apparently, an entrance off the subway from Downtown to Hollywood.

8. Havana’s secret chambers

In the early 1990s, the Cuban government was reported to have secretly built more than 33 kilometers of tunnels under Havana. These were to serve as bomb shelters amid escalating threats of invasion by the United States.

Known as the Popular Tunnels, they were manually dug by hundreds of laborers and their entrances carefully hidden. But these were just the latest of a long tradition of tunneling under Cuba. All the way back in 1929, the New York Times reported on the discovery of five secret chambers under Havana’s City Hall.

7. Tokyo’s hidden network

From rivers and forgotten canals to the world’s largest sewer system, there’s plenty below Tokyo that we know about. But there may a lot more. When journalist Shun Akiba compared an old map to a new one, he found differences suggesting not only unknown tunnels but an effort to cover them up. Whereas the new map showed subway tunnels crossing in Nagata-cho, for instance, close to the National Diet building (the seat of government), the old map showed them as parallel. Shun also found evidence of an underground complex between the National Diet and the prime minister’s residence. He also remarked on the mysterious tunnels leading off the Ginza Line.

Official enquiries got him nowhere, he said, lips were “zipped tight” despite his respectable professional background as a war correspondent for Asahi TV. From what he’s seen, Shun believes there must be close to 2,000 km of tunnels beneath the city—eight times the stated 250 km. And many of them (the Namboku, Hanzomon, and O-Edo lines, for instance) were built long before their conversion for trains. That the Chiyoda line platform at Kokkai-gijidomae, the National Diet station, is the deepest in Tokyo, suggests it was built as a bomb shelter. Yet old blueprints show another level even deeper. There’s also the mystery of the Yurakucho line, which, with its high ceilings and military facilities on route, is rumored to be a secret road used by the military. Although the network dates back to World War Two and the Cold War era, the continued silence from officials suggests they may still be in use.

6. Washington’s whack-a-mole hidey-holes

The two main parties of the military-industrial regime based out of Washington have plenty in common, but one thing stands out: they’re both afraid of the public. Hence their underground tunnels to get from one building to another—tunnels they’re advised to make use of. Some of these famously served as evacuation routes during the 2021 Capitol siege, but they are in fact used every day just to avoid going outside.

According to The Drive, there’s “a labyrinth of at least 19 underground passages on Capitol Hill”,  not only for people but vehicles as well. The oldest date back to the 1800s, when they were built for water and ventilation, as well as to transport books by electrical conveyor belt between the Capitol and Library of Congress. When the Russell building was finished in the early 1900s, it came complete with a subway car system in a tunnel so fortified that it was, many years later, designated as a fallout shelter. As other buildings followed, the tunnel network grew. And nowadays the Cannon Tunnel, between the Cannon building and the Capitol, is more like an underground town with “a shoe repair store, post office, credit union, and cafeteria.”

Among the most recent major works was a 54,000-square-meter expansion of the Capitol building’s underground complex. This added three underground stories to the existing network with links to nearby offices and a 305-meter tunnel to the northwest, officially built for screening garbage trucks for explosives. That was in the 2000s, amid growing secrecy regarding Washington’s underworld—not to mention the tunnels and bunkers that lie deep under the White House.

5. Moscow’s many secrets

The largest of Europe’s old fortresses, the Kremlin sits atop a labyrinth of secret passageways. There’s the haunted Neglinnaya river tunnel, for example, the Syani stone mines where the city sourced limestone for construction, and, although it’s yet to be found, the library of Ivan the Terrible. Excavations for the latter have all turned up nothing but tunnels: “endless tunnels, buried, stoned in, heading in unknown directions”. While the search was called off, however—in part because of damage to foundations—the library’s still thought to be down there, along with its priceless collection. 

What has been found are the dungeons under two of the Kremlin’s towers, in one of which Ivan the Terrible imprisoned Prince Andrei Khovansky. Those condemned to torture were kept gagged and chained to the wall, allowed to speak only when addressed by their captors. The nearby dungeons of the Cathedral of the Archangel kept prisoners of the church, people who owed it money, on painful posts known as “penitence chairs”. Just next door are the cathedral’s stone treasuries, built to withstand both fires and theft.

Much more recently constructed was the Metro-2, a parallel subway system built, in secret, around the same time as the main one. Intended to evacuate the government, it runs as deep as 250 meters in places. And not much is known about it, either, except that it does exist; Moscow’s first post-Soviet mayor confirmed that in 2006. 

4. New York’s abandoned subways

There are numerous disused rail tunnels under New York City. Track 61 beneath the Waldorf Astoria is among the most storied, having once carried presidents and generals like Roosevelt and MacArthur. In 2003, it was even considered as an escape route for George Bush and his lackeys. It has also hosted a fashion show and an Andy Warhol event. Other subways were constructed for the mail, such as the Farley-Morgan Postal Tunnel under 9th Avenue. Although it’s sealed off now, it was briefly used in 2004 to sneak guests between venues for the Republican National Convention. 

The Atlantic Avenue Tunnel under Brooklyn, meanwhile, has been abandoned since 1861—less than 20 years after it was built in 1844. It’s the oldest subway in the world and was only briefly reopened in 1918 to look for Germans.

But there’s a lot more under New York besides subways. One of the most interesting and unique tunnels is the 66-kilometer underground aqueduct between Bryant Park and the Croton River in Westchester. Disused since the 1950s, this “perfectly preserved” tunnel—the 1842 Croton Aqueduct—once carried millions of gallons of water to the city. It was all stored at the Distributing Reservoir in Bryant Park, a vast, 16,000-square-meter structure resembling an ancient Egyptian temple. It was actually thanks to this place, the solution to Manhattan’s disgusting sanitation problems, that the city is still there today.

3. Rome’s ancient quarries

So extensive are the ancient tunnels and quarries under Rome, dating back to the founding of the city, that it’s common for sinkholes to form and for buildings on the surface to collapse. It was only in 2013 that geologists mapped the network, amid an increasing number of such incidents. There were 44 collapses in 2011, followed by 77 in 2012, and 83 by December 2013. Residents have usually patched up the damage themselves using big plastic bags of cement.

The original ancient Roman tunnelers actually tried to guard against this happening (in their own day, at least) by keeping the passageways narrow. This ensured the surface was still largely supported. Over time, however, the exposed rock has weathered. Not only that but later generations have widened the original tunnels and kept building more.

Although they’re not open to the public, they’ve been used by Romans down the ages as catacombs, sewers, and mushroom farms, as well as shelters in the Second World War.

2. London’s tunnels of intrigue

With its dungeons, crypts, and catacombs, 13 underground rivers, and plague pits from the mid-1300s, the history of London lies just below the surface. More recently, however, officials confirmed what urban explorers have known for decades: the existence of a sprawling network of underground tunnels connecting government buildings with secret chambers. According to the Land Registry in 2017, most of them were built by the Post Office, British Telecom, and the Ministry of Defence.

One of the more interesting parts of the network, the Postmaster General’s tunnel, runs from the East End of London to what used to be the War Office at 57 Whitehall (now an overpriced hotel). At various points along the way, elevator shafts connect it to government departments and telephone exchanges. Deep under High Holborn Street, not far from Whitehall, one such exchange was built as a government bomb shelter, complete with a restaurant, games rooms, and two bars (one for tea and one for booze).

The tunnels have, officially, been out of use since the Cold War era, but they were never opened up to the public. While those who’ve managed to sneak down there do say it’s like a time capsule, untouched in decades, they’ve only seen parts. Access to the deeper levels is suspiciously bricked off, the lights are kept on, and trespassers are disproportionately punished.

1. Beijing’s underground city

Built to hold 40% of citizens in the event of a war with Russia, Beijing’s dixia cheng (“underground city”) covers a remarkable 85 square kilometers—all hand-dug by citizens during the Cold War. It’s also known as the “underground Great Wall of China”, for its massive scale. But you’re not allowed to see it. 

The official guided tour takes in only a small, looping, and commercialized fraction of the whole. The rest of the corridors, tunnels and bunkers are said to be inhabited by up to one million homeless—the so-called Rat Tribe (who presumably stand to inherit the Earth). But that sounds too good to be true. While some of dixia cheng has been converted to low-cost, sub-standard apartments, it’s hard to imagine the CCP leaving all of it to poor people and tramps when there are hundreds of more selfish uses. With 90 entrances across the city, for example, its potential for “disappearing” citizens is obvious.

In any case, whatever’s really down there, it was built for long-term habitation, with storage for grain and space for mushroom farming, as well as restaurants, barber shops, a cinema, classrooms and anything else to help persuade citizens that things were still normal.

In cities the majority of space is off-limits. Parks and streets may account for up to half the total area, but when you factor in the vertical axis—the floors inside buildings (many of them empty)—you get a different picture. And that’s just the space that we know about. Often there’s a lot more underground.

In order of size, here are 10 of the most spectacular subterranean sights you’re forbidden from seeing or, in some cases, even from knowing they exist…

10. Mumbai’s imperial underworld

When an occupying force takes over your country, it tends to cut you out of the loop. Hence, whenever Indian construction workers find structures under cities once controlled by the British, they don’t know what they were built for. The vault beneath Kolkata’s National Library, for instance, might have been anything from a treasury to a torture chamber—or, as it eventually turned out, just part of the building’s foundations. 

Mumbai has a veritable underworld of abandoned imperial structures, from the 13-room bunker under Raj Bhavan (the seat of city government) to the kilometer-long tunnel under the old General Post Office.

Another mystery was unearthed as recently as 2022: a 200-meter tunnel under Mumbai’s JJ Hospital, a building whose foundations were laid by the British governor. Appearing on no maps, it was only discovered in a water leak survey. And it was blocked at one end so it wasn’t clear where it once led. While it’s thought to have been to a neighboring hospital, it remains something of a mystery for now—as does the number of underground structures that remain to be found in Mumbai.

9. LA’s prohibition partyways

While the rest of America endured its first War on Drugs—the doomed-to-fail prohibition of alcohol—the mayor of LA kept the hooch flowing through a network of underground service tunnels. These were also the routes by which the flappers and dapper gents of the city’s roaring party scene got from one bar to the next without hassle. Originally built as service tunnels, and for a subway to ease traffic on the surface, they ran for more than 17 kilometers connecting basements converted to speakeasies.

One such bar was the King Eddy Saloon. Established almost 20 years before Prohibition, it moved underground to survive—transforming its above-ground premises into a piano store. Others include the Edison, in the basement of the city’s first privately owned power plant, and Cole’s, under the Pacific Electric building. Patrons of all these establishments, armed with a password, stumbled around wasted, completely unseen by police and paparazzi.

Despite their historic significance, the passages and basements are now closed to the public and even largely unmapped. Many are flooded and crumbling. Just like in the old days, however, those in the know can find their way in—as evidenced by the tunnels’ graffiti. According to Atlas Obscura, there’s an “easy-to-miss elevator” on Temple Street. And there’s also, apparently, an entrance off the subway from Downtown to Hollywood.

8. Havana’s secret chambers

In the early 1990s, the Cuban government was reported to have secretly built more than 33 kilometers of tunnels under Havana. These were to serve as bomb shelters amid escalating threats of invasion by the United States.

Known as the Popular Tunnels, they were manually dug by hundreds of laborers and their entrances carefully hidden. But these were just the latest of a long tradition of tunneling under Cuba. All the way back in 1929, the New York Times reported on the discovery of five secret chambers under Havana’s City Hall.

7. Tokyo’s hidden network

From rivers and forgotten canals to the world’s largest sewer system, there’s plenty below Tokyo that we know about. But there may a lot more. When journalist Shun Akiba compared an old map to a new one, he found differences suggesting not only unknown tunnels but an effort to cover them up. Whereas the new map showed subway tunnels crossing in Nagata-cho, for instance, close to the National Diet building (the seat of government), the old map showed them as parallel. Shun also found evidence of an underground complex between the National Diet and the prime minister’s residence. He also remarked on the mysterious tunnels leading off the Ginza Line.

Official enquiries got him nowhere, he said, lips were “zipped tight” despite his respectable professional background as a war correspondent for Asahi TV. From what he’s seen, Shun believes there must be close to 2,000 km of tunnels beneath the city—eight times the stated 250 km. And many of them (the Namboku, Hanzomon, and O-Edo lines, for instance) were built long before their conversion for trains. That the Chiyoda line platform at Kokkai-gijidomae, the National Diet station, is the deepest in Tokyo, suggests it was built as a bomb shelter. Yet old blueprints show another level even deeper. There’s also the mystery of the Yurakucho line, which, with its high ceilings and military facilities on route, is rumored to be a secret road used by the military. Although the network dates back to World War Two and the Cold War era, the continued silence from officials suggests they may still be in use.

6. Washington’s whack-a-mole hidey-holes

The two main parties of the military-industrial regime based out of Washington have plenty in common, but one thing stands out: they’re both afraid of the public. Hence their underground tunnels to get from one building to another—tunnels they’re advised to make use of. Some of these famously served as evacuation routes during the 2021 Capitol siege, but they are in fact used every day just to avoid going outside.

According to The Drive, there’s “a labyrinth of at least 19 underground passages on Capitol Hill”,  not only for people but vehicles as well. The oldest date back to the 1800s, when they were built for water and ventilation, as well as to transport books by electrical conveyor belt between the Capitol and Library of Congress. When the Russell building was finished in the early 1900s, it came complete with a subway car system in a tunnel so fortified that it was, many years later, designated as a fallout shelter. As other buildings followed, the tunnel network grew. And nowadays the Cannon Tunnel, between the Cannon building and the Capitol, is more like an underground town with “a shoe repair store, post office, credit union, and cafeteria.”

Among the most recent major works was a 54,000-square-meter expansion of the Capitol building’s underground complex. This added three underground stories to the existing network with links to nearby offices and a 305-meter tunnel to the northwest, officially built for screening garbage trucks for explosives. That was in the 2000s, amid growing secrecy regarding Washington’s underworld—not to mention the tunnels and bunkers that lie deep under the White House.

5. Moscow’s many secrets

The largest of Europe’s old fortresses, the Kremlin sits atop a labyrinth of secret passageways. There’s the haunted Neglinnaya river tunnel, for example, the Syani stone mines where the city sourced limestone for construction, and, although it’s yet to be found, the library of Ivan the Terrible. Excavations for the latter have all turned up nothing but tunnels: “endless tunnels, buried, stoned in, heading in unknown directions”. While the search was called off, however—in part because of damage to foundations—the library’s still thought to be down there, along with its priceless collection. 

What has been found are the dungeons under two of the Kremlin’s towers, in one of which Ivan the Terrible imprisoned Prince Andrei Khovansky. Those condemned to torture were kept gagged and chained to the wall, allowed to speak only when addressed by their captors. The nearby dungeons of the Cathedral of the Archangel kept prisoners of the church, people who owed it money, on painful posts known as “penitence chairs”. Just next door are the cathedral’s stone treasuries, built to withstand both fires and theft.

Much more recently constructed was the Metro-2, a parallel subway system built, in secret, around the same time as the main one. Intended to evacuate the government, it runs as deep as 250 meters in places. And not much is known about it, either, except that it does exist; Moscow’s first post-Soviet mayor confirmed that in 2006. 

4. New York’s abandoned subways

There are numerous disused rail tunnels under New York City. Track 61 beneath the Waldorf Astoria is among the most storied, having once carried presidents and generals like Roosevelt and MacArthur. In 2003, it was even considered as an escape route for George Bush. It has also hosted a fashion show and an Andy Warhol event. Other subways were constructed for the mail, such as the Farley-Morgan Postal Tunnel under 9th Avenue. Although it’s sealed off now, it was briefly used in 2004 to sneak guests between venues for the Republican National Convention. 

The Atlantic Avenue Tunnel under Brooklyn, meanwhile, has been abandoned since 1861—less than 20 years after it was built in 1844. It’s the oldest subway in the world and was only briefly reopened in 1918 to look for Germans.

But there’s a lot more under New York besides subways. One of the most interesting and unique tunnels is the 66-kilometer underground aqueduct between Bryant Park and the Croton River in Westchester. Disused since the 1950s, this “perfectly preserved” tunnel—the 1842 Croton Aqueduct—once carried millions of gallons of water to the city. It was all stored at the Distributing Reservoir in Bryant Park, a vast, 16,000-square-meter structure resembling an ancient Egyptian temple. It was actually thanks to this place, the solution to Manhattan’s disgusting sanitation problems, that the city is still there today.

3. Rome’s ancient quarries

So extensive are the ancient tunnels and quarries under Rome, dating back to the founding of the city, that it’s common for sinkholes to form and for buildings on the surface to collapse. It was only in 2013 that geologists mapped the network, amid an increasing number of such incidents. There were 44 collapses in 2011, followed by 77 in 2012, and 83 by December 2013. Residents have usually patched up the damage themselves using big plastic bags of cement.

The original Ancient Roman tunnelers actually tried to guard against this happening (in their own day, at least) by keeping the passageways narrow. This ensured the surface was still largely supported. Over time, however, the exposed rock has weathered. Not only that but later generations have widened the original tunnels and kept building more.

Although they’re not open to the public, they’ve been used by Romans down the ages as catacombs, sewers, and mushroom farms, as well as shelters in the Second World War.

2. London’s tunnels of intrigue

With its dungeons, crypts, and catacombs, 13 underground rivers, and plague pits from the mid-1300s, the history of London lies just below the surface. More recently, however, officials confirmed what urban explorers have known for decades: the existence of a sprawling network of underground tunnels connecting government buildings with secret chambers. According to the Land Registry in 2017, most of them were built by the Post Office, British Telecom, and the Ministry of Defence.

One of the more interesting parts of the network, the Postmaster General’s tunnel, runs from the East End of London to what used to be the War Office at 57 Whitehall (now an overpriced hotel). At various points along the way, elevator shafts connect it to government departments and telephone exchanges. Deep under High Holborn Street, not far from Whitehall, one such exchange was built as a government bomb shelter, complete with a restaurant, games rooms, and two bars (one for tea and one for booze).

The tunnels have, officially, been out of use since the Cold War era, but they were never opened up to the public. While those who’ve managed to sneak down there do say it’s like a time capsule, untouched in decades, they’ve only seen parts. Access to the deeper levels is suspiciously bricked off, the lights are kept on, and trespassers are disproportionately punished.

1. Beijing’s underground city

Built to hold 40% of citizens in the event of a war with Russia, Beijing’s dixia cheng (“underground city”) covers a remarkable 85 square kilometers—all hand-dug by citizens during the Cold War. It’s also known as the “underground Great Wall of China”, for its massive scale. But you’re not allowed to see it. 

The official guided tour takes in only a small, looping, and commercialized fraction of the whole. The rest of the corridors, tunnels and bunkers are said to be inhabited by up to one million homeless—the so-called Rat Tribe (who presumably stand to inherit the Earth). But that sounds too good to be true. While some of dixia cheng has been converted to low-cost, sub-standard apartments, it’s hard to imagine the CCP leaving all of it to poor people and tramps when there are hundreds of more selfish uses. With 90 entrances across the city, for example, its potential for “disappearing” citizens is obvious.

In any case, whatever’s really down there, it was built for long-term habitation, with storage for grain and space for mushroom farming, as well as restaurants, barber shops, a cinema, classrooms and anything else to help persuade citizens that things were still normal.

Have you ever stopped to think about what you’re allowed to do in the world in a general sort of way? There are laws against things like murder and stealing of course, but those make sense to most people right away. And there are also rules that apply to certain people and not others like “authorized personnel only” which means certain people can do a thing and others can’t. Even that makes sense to most of us. But every so often you come across a thing which no one is allowed to do, and it just doesn’t seem to make much sense at all, even if there’s a reason.

10. No One Is Allowed to Move a Ladder That’s Been at the Holy Sepulchre Church For Centuries

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre has existed in Jerusalem since the fourth century. It’s supposed to be built on land covering both the site of Jesus’s crucifixion and the cave from which he came back from the dead. As you can imagine, in Christianity, it’s a pretty significant place. And it also contains a ladder no one can touch. 

Christians don’t all see eye to eye and there are six different denominations that oversee this one single church. As such, some sections of the church are common or shared areas and some are strictly overseen by just one sect. It’s that spirit of sharing Jesus was so into. They’re so rigid in their control of this church that there are rules, officially called the Status Quo, about who can move about inside and when. All factions must agree fully to everything or nothing can happen. That includes mundane details like who can open a door or light a candle. Apparently these rules are violently defended and monks of different orders have gotten into fistfights over it. Again, very Christ-like.

So what does this have to do with a ladder? The simple five-run ladder is outside a window on the second story of the church above the entrance. It has been there for 265 years or more. The Status Quo rules don’t cover the ladder and so no one has the right to move it. As such, no one ever has or apparently ever will. In fact, when a tourist once pulled it in a window and hid it, they tracked it down and put it back. 

9. No One in North Korea is Ever Allowed to Hold the Title of President 

North Korea has been a geopolitical anomaly for many years with the country at once instilling fear and being the butt of jokes. The nation’s reclusive nature and overt aggression ensure it’s never quite taken seriously and, in the West especially, the most recent leaders of the country have been mocked mercilessly. This includes current leader Kim Jong-un and his father, Kim Jong-il. 

Jong-un’s title as ruler of the nation is General Secretary though most media sources just call him the leader. He’s also Party Chairman. But he’s not President, nor was his father. Instead, his grandfather Kim Il Sung retains that title, despite the fact he died in 1994.

Il Sung holds the title of Eternal President, and the office of President was written out of the Constitution so that no one else could ever hold it. 

8. No One Can Visit U Thant Island in New York

There’s a tiny island in New York’s East River called U Thant Island. U Thant was once the Secretary General of the United Nations but the island was never his home, or anything like that. It’s too small to have been used for much of anything, actually. If you see pictures it appears to be rocky shore, some scattered weeds and trees, and what appears to be some janky metal scaffolding and a small radio-type tower.

Also known as Belmont Island, it only came into existence in the 1800s when a tunnel being dug under the East River allowed it to build up and emerge from the water. It was called Belmont at first for the man who funded the tunnel but then later a Buddhist group rented it and gave it the unofficial name of U Thant Island. They are the ones who put up the metal monument to the UN leader.

No one can visit the island these days thanks to a series of unrelated events. First, its proximity to the UN headquarter has always meant visitation was limited. But in 2004 an artist set up a protest there claiming it was a sovereign nation. And now it’s a bird sanctuary so travel to the island is strictly prohibited.

7. No One is Allowed Outside for 24 Hours During Bali’s Day of Silence

Bali has long been a hot spot vacation destination and there are plenty of resorts there and tourist attractions for those looking to experience some exotic luxury in Indonesia. But it’s worth knowing if you do head to Bali you need to check your calendar to see when they’re celebrating Nyepi Day, the Bali Day of Silence.

It’s a New Year celebration, but it’s pretty much the exact opposite of any other New Year celebration you’ve seen. No one is allowed out on Nyepi Day and that literally means no one. You have to stay indoors for an entire 24 hours.  No driving, no walking, no setting foot outside of your house. You’re not even supposed to turn lights on at night or make loud noises. There are no flights for the whole day, hotel guests are confined to hotel grounds.

There are celebrations for a few days leading up to the event, so it’s not like there’s no party at all. But the day of, which starts at 6 am, is clearly different. There are some minor exceptions because it’s a modern world with modern problems, so emergency vehicles are allowed on the roads. And a few people who are allowed out do so as a sort of local watch to make sure everyone else is following the rules. 

6. The British Museum Has Purloined Ethiopian Treasure No One is Permitted to See

It’s no secret that many museum exhibits in England have a sketchy pedigree insofar as, historically, many items on display had been stolen from countries once occupied or colonized by the British. This includes a fair amount of treasure that once belonged to Ethiopia.

The British Museum has a series of wooden and stone tablets that were taken from the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and represent the Ark of the Covenant. In their tradition, only priests of the church are allowed to view these items. But they were seized in 1868 after the British Army defeated the Ethiopian emperor during the Battle of Maqdala.

Ethiopia has asked for these items back numerous times which were, by all accounts, simply stolen. The Museum has never agreed to return them. Which is ironic because, in the 150 years since they’ve been stolen, no one has ever seen them because the museum keeps them locked away from public view and they have never been on display. The British Museum itself acknowledges where the treasure came from and agreed to never display the items in accordance with the beliefs of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church but still has not agreed to their return. 

5. Mt. Kailash has Never Been Climbed Due to Its Significance as a Religious Place

They call Mt. Kailash the Stairway to Heaven and with a name like that, you’d think people would want to be climbing it all the time. And the want part may be true, but it’s not actually happening. Officially, no one has ever climbed to the peak, at least in modern times, as the mountain is sacred to several religions in the area. 

Hindus, Buddhists and others make regular pilgrimages to the mountain and you can camp near it, tour around it and spend a lot of time in the area but reaching the summit is just not permitted

4. You’re Not Allowed to Drive on the M-185 Highway

Some highways become oddly infamous over time. Route 66 is arguably the most famous highway in America and there are even songs written about it. But the M-185 highway in Michigan has its own claim to fame that no one highway can make. You can’t drive on this one.

With the exception of emergency vehicles, no one is allowed to drive a motorized vehicle of any kind on the M-186, located on Michigan’s Mackinac Island. It’s the only state highway in the country with this rule. 

Mackinac Island isn’t very big and M-185 is just over 8 miles long. The rule stems from a ban on “horseless carriages” that the island put into place over a century ago. At that time, touring the island in a horse-drawn carriage was very popular so the carriage drivers petitioned to ban cars on the grounds they scared the horses. The ban went into effect in 1898 and was never lifted.

These days you can still take horses around or try a bicycle as most people seem to prefer. 

3. There are Thousands of Prince Songs No One Has Ever Heard

Prince was a prolific musician during his lifetime and also something of a quirky and eccentric man at the best of times. He recorded 39 studio albums but also quite a bit more. There is a vault of recordings that he made and never released which few people, if any, have ever heard. 

His output was almost hard to believe. Aside from an album almost once a year he recorded literally thousands of songs. While one documentary claimed there were 2,000 songs, others guessed as many as 8,000 are in his private collection having never been released or heard by anyone. Since he also wrote, sang and played most of the instruments on many tracks, it’s possible that some of these weren’t just heard by “barely” anyone but by no one other than Prince himself.

In talking about him, his keyboardist and musical director said he would just record songs and move on if he didn’t feel like they were right. He’d tell his bandmates that somebody would do something with the unreleased stuff one day, or maybe he’d revisit it down the line.

Because Prince died without a will, his song catalog is part of a dispute and, as such, is not something that will be released publicly until everything is resolved, if ever.

2. No One in New Jersey Can Pump Their Own Gas

The New Jersey state motto is Liberty and Prosperity but that liberty doesn’t extend to the gas pumps. Drivers in the state are not allowed to pump their own gas. The reason is prosperity, at least the prosperity of those who run gas stations. The law dates back to the proliferation of early self-serve stations which people felt were a danger to smaller gas stations. In order to ensure they didn’t get pushed out of business, the state made it a law in 1949 that no one could pump their own so workers wouldn’t lose their jobs. 

Oregon has a similar law that dates back to 1951 though they have some areas where self-serve is allowed so it’s not as strict as New Jersey law. If you’re caught in one of these states pumping your own gas, you could get fined as much as $5,000.

1. Hell is in Grand Cayman But You Can’t Enter It

If a place is particularly awful for whatever reason, people may describe it as Hell on Earth. But there are also a few places that are literally called Hell here on Earth and one is in Grand Cayman. You can look at it from a distance but you can’t actually set foot in it.

Its name is from the black limestone formations which give it an ominous landscape. It’s a small plot of land, described as about the size of a soccer field, complete with a small tourist trap store that sells souvenirs. Though you can approach on a boardwalk and take pictures, you can’t go onto the rocks themselves. No one is allowed to actually enter Hell.