Kuldhara
A whole desert village stands empty, and the story goes that everyone left in a single night.
What was reported
Kuldhara, about 18 km from Jaisalmer, was a prosperous village founded centuries ago by Paliwal Brahmins. Today its rows of stone houses, temples and wells stand empty and roofless.
Local legend says that in the early 19th century, after the demands of a cruel state minister, the people of Kuldhara and dozens of nearby villages packed up and left in one night, putting a curse on the land so that no one could settle there again.
Explanations offered
Historians point to a slower decline. Surveys of the site found that most of the village's wells had dried up by the early 1800s, while taxes from the Jaisalmer state stayed high. Farming became impossible, and families moved away over years rather than overnight.
- When
- Abandoned in the early 1800s
- Where
- Near Jaisalmer, Rajasthan, India
- Witnesses
- Visitors to the ruins
- Status
- Mostly explained
Famous cases are real, widely reported events. Each file sets out what witnesses said and the explanations that have been offered, without taking a side.