People walk under a light projection during the Shanghai International Light Festival at a shopping mall complex in Shanghai on September 22, 2025. (Photo by Jade Gao/AFP Photo)

Built for over a million people, the city of Ordos was designed to be the crowning glory of Inner Mongolia. Doomed to incompletion however, this futuristic metropolis now rises empty out of the deserts of northern China. Only 2% of its buildings were ever filled; the rest has largely been left to decay, abandoned mid-construction, earning Ordos the title of China's Ghost City.

A Felix the Cat balloon and other parade floats and balloons are led down Broadway during the annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade; ca. 1900s, Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, New York State, USA. (Photo by Underwood & Underwood/Corbis)

Wedges of an orange generate enough current and electrical juice – 3.5 volts – to power an LED. The fruit’s citric acid helps electrons flow from galvanized nails to copper wire in this 14-hour exposure. This image was published in September’s Visions of Earth, a trio of photos that appear in each issue of National Geographic. (Photo by Caleb Charland/National Geographic)

Bikini-clad women ski as they are led by a car during a performance on the frozen Yenisei River outside Krasnoyarsk, Siberia, Russia, March 20, 2016. The performance, entitled “Siberian Spring's Strings” and created with the participation of artist Vasily Slonov, marked the day of spring equinox (vernal equinox), according to organizers. (Photo by Ilya Naymushin/Reuters)

People watch a forest fire in Funchal, Madeira Island, Portugal, 09 August 2016. The fire has led to the evacuation of 400 people. Portugal remains on high alert as a wave of wildfires has swept the country with around 350 isolated fires affecting swathes of the countryside. (Photo by Gregório Cunha/EPA)