Underground city


An underground city is a series of linked subterranean spaces that may provide a defensive refuge; a place for living, working or shopping; a transit system; mausolea; wine or storage cellars; cisterns or drainage channels; or several of these.
The term may also refer to a network of tunnels that connects buildings beneath street level that may house office blocks, shopping malls, metro stations, theatres, and other attractions. These passages can usually be accessed through the public space of any of the buildings connecting to them, and sometimes have separate entries as well. This latter definition encompasses many modern structures, whereas the former more generally covers tunnel systems from ancient times to the present day.
Underground cities are especially functional in cities with very cold or hot climates, because they permit activities to be comfortably accessible year round without regard to the weather. Underground cities are similar in nature to skyway systems and may include some buildings linked by skyways or above-ground corridors rather than underground.
Some cities also have tunnels that have been abandoned.

Argentina

, capital of Argentina, has an extensive amount of underground cities in its Subte. Most stations have small shops, bars and kiosks, while main hubs interconnect through underground pedestrian walkways with railroad stations, governmental buildings, or shopping centres. Some have additional mall-like mezzanine levels, with the Centro Obelisk of Buenos Aires area, Estación Retiro, Estación Constitución, Estación Once, and Federico Lacroze railway station being the most important ones.

Australia

has a series of underground shopping malls around the Town Hall underground station. The tunnels run south to the George Street cinema district, west under the town hall, and north to Pitt Street Mall through the Queen Victoria Building. The northern branch links Queen Victoria Building with Galleries Victoria, Sydney Central Plaza. The linked centres run for over. In 2005, Westfield corporation submitted a development application to link Sydney Central Plaza underground with 3 other properties on Pitt Street Mall and extend the tunnel network by a further or more.
Perth has a small network of underground shopping malls running from the St Georges Terrace entrance to Trinity Arcade to Murray Street Mall.
The small town of Coober Pedy in northern South Australia has numerous underground residences and other facilities. The area was and is extensively mined for opal, and the settlers lived underground to escape the scorching daytime heat, often exceeding.

Canada

The cold northern continental climate makes underground pedestrian malls quite useful.


has some elements of an underground city in its "Metro" subway system. While all stations have a small mezzanine level above the tracks for ticket purchase, some key stations have extensive areas of shops and kiosks in addition. Some stations even have an additional mall-like level between the street and the mezzanine levels.

China

In Thessaloniki, Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, and Ottoman monuments coexist that bear witness to the city history and its significance. Several of the underground secrets of Thessaloniki have been discovered and emerged, while restoration work is under process. Although the final result is impressive with underground monuments such as the Catacombs of St. John and the underground museum of the Agora, they do not comprise highlights for the city and access is still very limited or not permitted even to the locals by the Archaeological Department of the Thessaloniki underground Metro project.

Hong Kong

Many MTR stations in Hong Kong form extended underground networks connecting to buildings and at the basement of some major shopping malls in the area above. The stations themselves house a number of retail shops. Notable examples are the Central–Hong Kong stations and the Tsim Sha Tsui–East Tsim Sha Tsui stations. Only rarely are there not any shops. Additional underground networks have been proposed for Causeway Bay in 2006 and in Kwun Tong under Hoi Yuen Road in 2010. As of 2014, studies are underway for underground networks in Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon Park, Victoria Park, Causeway Bay, Happy Valley, Admiralty, Wan Chai and Hong Kong Park. In 2017, The Development Bureau announced that two underground streets will be constructed, which would connect San Po Kong, Kai Tak Station and Sung Wong Toi Station.

Iran

The top five largest underground "cities" in Japan are all shopping districts:
, Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan
, Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan

Jordan

boasts the city of Petra—"rose-red city, half as old as time"—carved from the living rock.

Mexico

city was built over old silver mines, some of which are used as roads. The Mexico DF metro system has many underground pedestrian walkways connecting stations.

Netherlands

In general, many large railway stations house underground hallways featuring shops, restaurants, banks and money exchange offices. A striking example of such stations would be the main hallway of the Amsterdam central station, which connects to the city's metro system, although due to renovation and re-building it was temporarily not possible to walk from the subway to the train station without going outside.
has underground streets connecting two or more metro stations. In addition, there is a large underground shopping mall near the main train station.
, one of the largest underground complexes in Cappadocia. There are few artifacts left from the original builders, mainly just large rocks that were used to block the passage for intruders. Most of the "cities" are corridors, but some places there are rooms large enough to live in, and some rooms that have the cross-like shape of a church, which is probably exactly what they were.