A
lost city is a settlement that fell into terminal decline and became extensively or completely uninhabited. The locations of many lost cities have been forgotten, but some have been rediscovered and studied extensively by scientists. Recently abandoned cities or cities whose location was never in question might be referred to as
ruins or
ghost towns. The search for such lost cities by
European explorers and adventurers in Africa, the Americas, and Southeast Asia from the 15th century onwards eventually led to the development of
archaeology.