World’s ‘creepiest island’ where 160,000 corpses are buried and tourists are banned from visiting for one reason

Poveglia is a small island in Italy, located just a few miles south of Venice, that’s become known as one of the most disturbing and mysterious places in the world. Even though Italy is a top destination for millions of American tourists every year, Poveglia is strictly off-limits to visitors. It’s not just because of its decaying buildings, but also because of its dark and horrifying past.

The island is tiny—only about seven hectares in size, making it even smaller than Alcatraz in San Francisco. But what it lacks in size, it makes up for in tragic history. In the late 1700s, Poveglia was turned into a quarantine station for people suspected of having the plague. When the plague hit hard and other hospitals were overwhelmed, Poveglia became a dumping ground for the sick and dying. Many never left the island alive. Their bodies were tossed into large mass graves known as “plague pits.” Over time, it’s believed that around 160,000 people either died or were buried there.

Later, in 1922, the island’s buildings were converted into a psychiatric hospital. The eerie nature of the island only grew worse from there. According to local legends and disturbing stories passed down over the years, people who were sent there were often forgotten, and it’s said that doctors experimented on patients in ways that would be considered horrific by today’s standards. Some say these experiments were cruel and abusive, carried out in secret because of the island’s isolation. The hospital eventually shut down in 1968, and since then, the island has been abandoned and left to decay.

Today, the buildings on Poveglia are falling apart, and local authorities have banned tourists from visiting the island because it’s considered too dangerous. The structures are crumbling, there are no safety measures in place, and the island hasn’t been cleaned or restored. It’s as if time has stood still there.

Even though tourists are banned, some explorers have managed to sneak onto the island. In 2020, two British urban explorers, Matt Nadin and Andy Thompson, visited Poveglia for their YouTube channel, “Finders Beepers History Seekers.” What they saw left a deep impression on them. Nadin said the island felt heavy with sadness and horror. He described walking through the old hospital and feeling a strong sense of what had taken place there—how so many people had died, and how their remains were left behind without proper care or burial. He said the buildings were filled with a strange silence, and at one point they even heard the toll of a bell, which he called unsettling and creepy.

He also explained that the buildings, although decayed now, must have once been beautiful with their tiled floors and archways. But now, everything has been taken over by nature and time. There’s no graffiti, no signs of modern visitors just pure, untouched decay. It’s like the island has been frozen in time, haunted by the memory of all the suffering that happened there.

Poveglia is not just a spooky location it’s a real place marked by centuries of human suffering. While many people travel to Italy to experience its art, history, and beauty, this island stands as a chilling reminder of how some histories are hidden away, too tragic to become tourist attractions. That’s why it remains closed to the public and shrouded in mystery.