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  Hashima island and other abandoned places – in pictures

  From decaying Detroit to an eerily empty island in Japan, we seem fascinated by abandoned and derelict sites
  
  Sean O'Hagan asks why photographs of abandoned spaces are so fascinating
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The derelict Gulliver's Kingdom theme park, Japan, 2006. It was an amusement park built on the side of Mt Fuji in Yamanashi prefecture in 1987 and shut down in 2001

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The approach to Hashima island in Japan. Its silhouette earned the island the nickname Gunkanjima or Battleship Island.

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Until 1974 Hashima in Japan was the world’s most densely populated town… then its coal mine closed. Now it's deserted

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A television set and telephone pictured in former living quarters on Hashima, Japan. The images are taken from the book Gunkanjima, published by Steidl

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An abandoned bowling alley in Kanagawa prefecture, Japan, 2009. More of Thomas Jorion's work can be found on his website and in his recent book, entitled Silencio and published by La Martiniere