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Exploring Abandoned Military Tunnels On The Kinmen Islands

The Kinmen Islands are a virtual ant colony for people. An excessive array of tunnels go underground, connected military bases and towns.

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This is a vlog about exploring some of the excessive array of underground tunnels that were built by the military on the Kinmen Islands during the Chinese Civil War and later throughout the protracted cold war between the People’s Republic of China and the Republic of China that the islands were ground zero for. So when the bombs fell above the people went underground.

These islands are akin to giant ant colonies for humans. I’ve been exploring these tunnels each time I come back to Kinmen for years now, and I still don’t have a grasp of the full extent of the network. While I haven’t confirmed this, it’s so massive that I’m inclined to believe that pretty much every town, village, and military base is connected via a one single system of tunnels.

The vlog above features my friends Wang Ling and Xu Ran, who took me to explore a the tunnels that they found in the woods near their village. We were down there for over a half hour but didn’t even come close to exploring the full extent of them.

Filed under: Kinmen, Vlog

About the Author:

I am the founder and editor of Vagabond Journey. I’ve been traveling the world since 1999, through 91 countries. I am the author of the book, Ghost Cities of China and have written for The Guardian, Forbes, Bloomberg, The Diplomat, the South China Morning Post, and other publications. has written 3699 posts on Vagabond Journey. Contact the author.

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