Few cities in the world are eerier than Colma, California, which is famous for its 17 cemeteries. The town’s dead even outnumber its living — Colma has around 1,600 living residents compared to over 1.5 million gravesites. Some of Colma’s famous “residents” include Wyatt Earp, Levi Strauss, and William Randolph Hearst.

Brøndby is a unique Danish community which contains 12 separate sections of houses all built in a perfectly circular arrangement. The houses aren’t permanent residences, but rather temporary escapes for nearby Danish citizens to come and tend a rented garden between April 1 and October 1, plus other weekends throughout the year.

Constantine, Algeria, lines the 1.2-mile-long Rhummel Gorge, which reaches 574 feet deep at its lowest point. The city is known for its eight bridges; the most famous of which, the Sidi M’Cid Bridge, opened in 1912 and was once the highest bridge in the world.

Located a few hours by car south of Lima, near the city of Ica, Huacachina is a desert oasis centered around a small lagoon called Laguna Huacachina. Huacachina is mainly surrounded by sand dunes, making it a popular destination for dune buggying and sandboarding.

Jezzine has earned the moniker the “City of Falls,” thanks to its 240-foot-tall waterfall that plummets into the lush valley below. The waterfall is best viewed during peak water flow in the winter or spring. The city is also home to several scenic caves, including the Fakhreddine grotto, which served as a hideout during the First and Second World Wars.

Nicknamed the most “Portuguese town in Portugal,” the mountain village of Monsanto is carved from rock and squeezed between boulders, many of which make up the roofs and walls of houses throughout the village. Monsanto’s famed castle, built by the Templars Grand Master, helped the town withstand invasions during the Napoleonic era.

Civita di Bagnoregio is a medieval town located north of Rome, that is separated by a canyon from the next nearest city. To reach the town, visitors must cross over a pedestrian-only bridge, and the town’s residents are known for patrolling the walls and charging tourists an entry fee. As of 2020, the town had 12 permanent residents — compared to a population of 20 cats.

Perched atop limestone cliffs above the Mediterranean Sea, the medieval French town of Bonifacio was founded in 830 CE, making it the island of Corsica’s oldest town. Bonifacio is referenced in Homer’s epic “Odyssey” where the hero Odysseus encounters the giant cannibals known as the Laestrygonians before miraculously escaping.

Nestled behind a giant rock face at the southern point of Peloponnese, the medieval town of Monemvasia sits on the coast of the Myrtoan Sea. The town has no streets — only cobblestone paths — meaning the only way to navigate the city is on foot. Many of the town’s well-preserved buildings date back to the Byzantine, Venetian, and Ottoman eras.

It’s not an exaggeration to say that the residents of Setenil de las Bodegas, Spain, live under a rock, as the roofs of many homes and stores are made up of a giant rock formation that overhangs a majority of the city. The rock is actually sandwiched between an additional row of homes perched atop it.

Located in the Australian Outback, Coober Pedy served as the backdrop for the 1985 film “Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome,” and it produces an estimated 70% of the world’s opals. Given the sweltering heat of the Outback, around half of the city’s population lives underground, where the temperature remains a more bearable 75 degrees Fahrenheit year-round.

Located in the Republic of Benin, the city of Ganvie is built on stilts atop a lagoon. Its origins date back to the 17th century, when the Tofinu tribe came to the region to escape persecution. Ganvie boasts a population of over 30,000 residents today, who largely live in bamboo huts built over water, earning it the “Venice of Africa” nickname.

Located in the valleys of Tunisia’s Djebel Dahar region, Matmata is known for its underground residences, one of which served as the backdrop for Luke Skywalker’s home in the “Star Wars” film series. The houses were built by digging deep pits into the soft sandstone, carving out abodes in the side, and then utilizing the initial pit as a communal courtyard.

The south-central French commune of Rocamadour ascends up a steep cliffside, where you can find a chapel originally built in 1105 and other religious buildings, including the basilica Saint-Sauveur. The city witnessed its first “miracle” in 1148, making it a popular pilgrimage site, and it now features a shrine and statue of a Madonna as its main attraction.

The Italian town of Castelluccio di Norcia is one of the highest settlements in the Apennines. Sitting at over 4,700 feet above sea level, Castelluccio is only reachable via winding roads with hairpin turns. The city is known for La Florita, when its mountainous fields become overgrown with colorful wildflowers between May and July each year.

Unofficially considered to be the world’s narrowest city, Yanjin, China is situated within a steep mountain ravine along the Nanxi River. The city measures a mere 100 feet wide at its narrowest point. Yanjin features buildings constructed atop pillars on both sides of the river to protect against potential flooding, with a single road along each side of the ravine.

Located in the Sonoran Desert of California, Slab City is far from your typical settlement. In the 1950s, a group of nomadic artistic settlers formed an encampment on a former military base, adding trailers, buses, and art installations throughout. Despite its unincorporated status, Slab City still has street names, a library, vendors that sell food, and other elements of city life.

A popular tourist destination, the Greek island of Santorini was formed along an ancient volcano, whose caldera was mostly submerged by an eruption around 3,600 years ago. It is the only inhabited volcanic caldera in the world and one of the few places where homes sit on volcanic soil. Though there are only around 15,000 residents, Santorini welcomes about 2 million visitors annually.

Ronda, Spain, is built on both sides of El Tajo Gorge, which descends 328 feet deep. Spanning the gorge is the Old Bridge (dating to 1616) and the New Bridge (completed in 1793). Aside from its breathtaking geography, Ronda is also the birthplace of modern bullfighting and features many historic bullrings, including a neoclassical one dating back to 1785.

Until 2001, the Persian Gulf off the coast of Dubai featured nothing but water. But over the years, an artificial settlement called Palm Jumeirah has been built on the gulf. Using 7 million tons of rock and over 4 billion cubic feet of sand, builders created an entire town in the shape of a giant palm tree.