Is there anything creepier than a frozen Ferris wheel or a creaking roller coaster track? At these abandoned theme parks, there's no fun to be had. Some were left to rot and ruin after natural disasters, while others suffered financial struggle. Click through to see haunting images of some of creepiest abandoned amusement parks in the world.

The Hurricane, a 100-foot-tall (30m) wooden roller coaster, was the main attraction at Boomers! Park in Dania Beach. It was the longest wooden roller coaster in Florida when it first opened in 2000 and, although it was part of the Boomers! Park, it was owned and operated independently. It was shut down by its operators in 2011 with the owners citing "business reasons". It's thought the humid climate in Florida made maintaining the roller coaster unviable.

The rest of the park stayed open, attracting visitors to its colourful mini-golf course and arcades until April 2015, when the park was closed to make way for development.

However, once closed, the park lay dormant for long enough to let the vegetation take over a little. While several plans to demolish the roller coaster and the buildings on site were made over the years, it wasn't until recently that a new development started taking shape. Now called Dania Pointe, it's a 102-acre space with offices, luxury apartments, retail stores and restaurants.

Starting life in the 1950s as a church playground, Belgium’s Dadipark was transformed into an amusement park in the 1980s. Although it was initially popular, with a million people visiting at its peak, disaster loomed.

In 2000, a child lost his arm on one of the rides and two years later the park closed. This was supposedly due to renovations, but these refurbishments never happened and the park was eventually abandoned.

However, unlike many other deserted amusement parks which become tourist attractions in their own right, Dadipark is set to soon be transformed into a residential area, with the rides demolished and a grassy recreational area planned instead.

Undoubtedly one of the strangest theme parks to ever be dreamed into existence, Gulliver’s Kingdom, built in the shadow of Mount Fuji in Japan, was an amusement park inspired by the 18th-century satire Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift.

In prime position in the park was an enormous 147-foot (45m) statue of Lemuel Gulliver, tied to the ground by tiny Lilliputians as per the story. It’s not just this eerie statue that put off visitors though. The location of the park was inauspicious – it sat next to both Aokigahara, a dense forest where an unusually high number of people have taken their own life and also the former headquarters of Aum Shinrikyo, a religious cult that killed 13 people in a nerve gas attack in Tokyo in 1995.

The park opened in 1997, but closed just four years later after failing to attract visitors. Gulliver’s Kingdom was then demolished in 2007, leaving just concrete slabs and exposed foundations where the creepy statue once lay.

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Spreepark once saw over 1.5 million visitors a year, but decades after it opened in 1969, the park ran up millions of euros worth of debt, and it couldn't renovate the rides that needed attention. It eventually fell into disrepair, and today stands abandoned east of the German capital.

Despite its closure, the amusement park is still popular with locals, who visit the ghostly site now used for events, performances, festivals, markets and screenings.

Originally known as Plänterwald, the park was renamed after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1991 to Spreepark. And there's hope for yet another new chapter in the park's history too. Thanks to a regeneration project that includes a beer garden, exhibition space and even a rebuilt Ferris wheel, the site could welcome thrill-seekers again in 2024.

The once-vibrant Six Flags New Orleans is a shadow of its former self, lying desolate after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The park was submerged in 20 feet (6m) of water during the storm itself and it took a further month for the remaining seven feet (2m) of waters to recede in the aftermath. The park has been closed ever since.

Instead of the screams of joy and laughter once heard in the park, it's now silent, with graffiti gracing almost every surface, and disused roller coasters, dodgems and Ferris wheels rusting away, never to be used again.

It's not always abandoned, though, as the park occasionally sees life as a filming location. Blockbusters such as Jurassic World and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes have been filmed here. There have been talks of redeveloping the park but nothing has ever stuck, and in 2019 the mayor said they were considering demolition. Today, though, it still stands as a example of the devastation inflicted by Hurricane Katrina.

Discover the eeriest abandoned attraction in every state here

Joyland Amusement Park in Wichita, Kansas opened in the 1940s and was once the largest theme park in central Kansas, with a wooden roller coaster and 24 other rides. It enjoyed a long life, entertaining residents of the state and visitors passing through. But in 2004, disaster struck.

The park was the scene of a serious accident in which a teenager fell from the Ferris wheel and was injured. Joyland was then closed and, apart from a brief lease of life in 2006, remained empty and grew increasingly dilapidated, with vandals and thieves flocking to the deserted space to break windows, start fires and mark it with graffiti.

In 2015, after more drama including severe windstorms, alleged arson attacks and looting, demolition began. Locals, some of whom had visited with three generations of their family, stopped by to take their last photos of the park before the attractions were hauled away.

Discover more of America's abandoned theme parks

Japan certainly has its fair share of creepy theme parks. Nara Dreamland, in southern Japan, was opened in the 1960s as the country’s “answer to Disneyland”. It was dreamt up by a local businessman, who was inspired after a trip to the USA.

It was a reasonably popular theme park, but as Universal Studios Japan opened, visitor numbers dwindled. The park was closed in 2006, and it soon became popular with urban explorers. Those fascinated by ruined landscapes visited the park to take photos and explore the empty rides.

Until 2016, when demolition of the park began, it had been abandoned for ten years and resembled a 'nightmare-land' rather than a Dreamland, with rust and overgrown foliage engulfing the roller coaster tracks, and the sinister silence of desolate rides.

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This tiny abandoned theme park has now become an attraction in itself. While you can't ride the merry go rounds or dodgems at Yongma Land, pay a small fee to enter and you can wander among the derelict grounds as you wish.

Established in 1980, Yongma was popular with the locals in Seoul. But when Lotte World opened in 1989, featuring indoor and outdoor rides, Yongma lost favour, and the park's income dwindled. It was closed in 2011 due to suffering profits.

Today, the park is popular with photographers who come to take artistic shots of its once bright and breezy attractions. It has appeared in music videos, and is now owned by a local businessman who will turn on the lights of the carousel for you for a fee.

This Chinese theme park never welcomed visitors. Wonderland, around 20 miles (32km) outside of Beijing, was pipped to be the largest amusement park in Asia, but it was a promise that proved too big for the developers.

Construction was halted after disagreements over property prices and a political corruption scandal. Ever since, the park – which was only partially constructed and is now littered with half-finished buildings – has been mostly empty, drawing only photographers and local kids to explore its eerie skeleton.

After 15 years of abandonment, much of the attraction was demolished in 2013, leaving only foundations in place of the empty buildings. Reports have said that a luxury shopping centre will be built in its place. 

Ho Thuy Tien was an ambitious project, with plans for amusement rides, aquariums, live entertainment and restaurants. There was so much hype, it even opened before it was completed, welcoming visitors in 2004. But people were less than impressed, and it eventually closed down.

Today, it stands abandoned and its water slides, the only attraction that was ready at the time of opening, lie dormant with no gushing water and screeching thrill-seekers. Instead, you'll just see the odd curious backpacker, and perhaps a herd of cows who are now helping keep the weeds at bay.

Set in lush countryside around five miles (8km) to the south of the city of Hue in central Vietnam, it's easy to see the potential this aqua adventure park once held. But the once blue splash pools are now smelly and stagnant, and the flumes have been left to rot.

Perhaps the most intriguing structure in the park is this giant sculpture of a dragon, overlooking a lake. Urban explorers have even climbed inside, via a staircase located in the beast's body, to peer out from its gnashing teeth.

Known as Ghost Town in the Sky, this abandoned Wild West-themed amusement park has seen as many ups and downs as its Red Devil roller coaster pictured here. Located on Buck Mountain, a mountaintop site towards the bottom of the Great Smoky Mountains, the park opened in 1961 and closed for good in 2016. Today it lies in ruins. It's featured here courtesy of Abandoned Southeast, in images taken by photographer Leland Kent.

At the height of its popularity, Ghost Town attracted thousands of guests every year. In the early 1970s, the park welcomed 400,000 visitors during its peak seasons, from families to Wild West enthusiasts.

From the early 2000s a series of mechanical failures, expensive repairs and lack of cash meant the park was on a downwards spiral. In early 2009, Ghost Town's owners failed to secure any further funding and declared bankruptcy. Now the park has been left to Mother Nature. 

Find out more about Ghost Town in the Sky here

Located in the English county of Lancashire, this theme park opened in 1983 and was a popular family attraction.Now however, this incarnation of Camelot has sadly seen better days. It operated for almost 30 years, but visitor numbers and poor food ratings led to the park's downfall. Its closure was finally announced in 2012, and some of its rides and roller coasters were sold off. You can ride the Whirlwind, for example, at Germany's Skyline Park. 

The Magical Kingdom of Camelot, to give it its full name, had roller coasters, children's rides and staff dressed in medieval costumes. The site has had a few ups and downs since closure, with planning sought for a housing development quashed by the council, and another plan for new homes jettisoned by the developers in 2018. Today, parts of the park remain in a state of disrepair, with some rides such as Knightmare, pictured, only removed and sold for scrap in February 2020.

Billed as "Europe's biggest theme park", Wonderland Eurasia opened in Ankara, Turkey in March 2019 to much fanfare. The 320-acre theme park featured 17 roller coasters, dozens of other attractions and cost the Ankara Metropolitan Municipality hundreds of millions of dollars to build. However, less than a year later, in February 2020, it closed its doors permanently.

Just two days after opening, one of the rides suffered a malfunction, forcing people to evacuate and further political turmoil, sub-par ride quality and lack of attendance all contributed to the park's downfall. The operator struggled to pay staff wages and electricity bills and so it closed with some attractions still unfinished.

Today, it resembles a dump site more than it does a theme park. Decaying dinosaurs, broken down models and headless robotic features dominate the landscape, creating a particularly eerie scenery in the outskirts of the Turkish capital.

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