Craco: the Italian hill town abandoned to the earth

Craco is one of the most striking abandoned towns in Europe: a cluster of stone houses and towers perched on a ridge in the hills of Basilicata, in southern Italy, with nothing around it but gullies and sky. It has been empty for decades, and its dramatic setting has made it a favourite of film directors and travellers alike.

A town on a ridge

Craco has been occupied for a very long time. A settlement has stood on this ridge since at least the medieval period, and its Norman tower and churches date back centuries. The town grew up on a steep, unstable hillside, its houses packed tightly together, its streets narrow, its people living from farming the surrounding land.

For most of its history the town’s position was an advantage — easy to defend, with wide views over the valleys. But the same geology that made it defensible also made it fragile. The ridge is made of soft, eroding material, and the ground beneath the town has always been on the move.

The ground gives way

By the twentieth century the town was in trouble. Earthquakes and landslides damaged the buildings, and the poor families of Craco began to leave for better land and steadier work. A series of earthquakes and the disastrous Irpinia earthquake of 1980 made the position untenable. The remaining residents were moved to a new settlement, Craco Peschiera, in the valley below.

The old town was left standing, and it has been empty ever since. Its houses and churches have slowly collapsed, and the ridge itself continues to erode, so that parts of the town are now unsafe to enter. Craco was placed on the World Monuments Fund watch list in 2010 as a site at risk.

A town of films and visitors

Craco’s ruin has given it a strange second life. Its empty streets and crumbling towers have appeared in films, including Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ and the James Bond film Quantum of Solace, and it draws visitors from around the world. Guided tours run through the safe parts of the old town, and the site has become a symbol of southern Italy’s depopulation.

It belongs in this archive beside Consonno and Barmaz — Italian places emptied not by war or industry but by the slow, relentless movement of the ground and the pull of the cities.

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Related places

If this one stayed with you, these entries sit in the same corner of the archive:

• Consonno: the 'City of Toys' that never woke up — Italy
• Barmaz: the Alpine hamlet that emptied in a single winter — Italy
• Belchite: the Spanish town left in ruins as a warning — Spain