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This Chinese Village Has Been Almost Entirely Swallowed By Nature

This Chinese Village Has Been Almost Entirely Swallowed By Nature

You know how sometimes you go out into your backyard and see a spade or shovel or some other gardening utensil in the back corner and it’s been almost completely buried by weeds? And you think, ‘Wow. It’s been a really long time since I tried to garden.’

Well, imagine that, but instead of a spade or a shovel, it’s an entire village.

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The Houtouwan village in China has been largely abandoned since the 1990s and has since become completely overrun by vegetation. Houtouwan is on Shengshen Island, one of almost 400 islands that make up the Shengsi Islands east of the Zhejang Province. Once a thriving fishing hub, the village has succumbed to its natural surrounds and remains almost completely covered in greenery. Vines cover so much of the village that it appears to be disappearing into the hill on which it is perched.

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Houtouwan Village used to boast over 2,000 residents, but is now home to only a few. Instead, the majority of people who explore the village today are tourists, eager to capture some evidence of the once bustling fishing hub that has returned, quite literally, to its roots.

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