Why millions of people still choose to live underground today
In short: While modern cities dominate the landscape, vast communities still reside within the earth. From the deserts of Australia to the hills of China, these cave dwellings are not relics of the past but functional, modern homes chosen for protection, heritage, and survival against extreme environments.
The practice of humans seeking refuge in underground caverns dates back millions of years to our early ancestors in Africa. Over millennia, these shelters evolved from mere refuges into cultural landmarks as people added rock art and held communal ceremonies, transforming caves into permanent homes. Today, this ancient lifestyle persists in various forms across the globe, driven by both necessity and tradition. In the Simpson Desert of Australia, the town of Coober Pedy serves as a primary example of environmental adaptation. After a gold prospector discovered opal in 1915, miners began living in dugouts to escape summer temperatures that can exceed 120 degrees Fahrenheit. This practice was further popularized by returning World War I soldiers who used excavated hillsides to stay cool.
Today, much of the community of 2,000 people lives underground, including their churches. Other regions showcase different motivations for cave living. In Guadix, southern Spain, over 3,000 people live in 2,000 cave homes originally used by the Moors to avoid religious persecution. In Moab, Utah, a group of Mormons lives in more than 15 cave homes blasted out of sandstone with dynamite 50 years ago, now equipped with modern plumbing and electricity. On a massive scale, the Shaanxi Province in central China once housed an estimated 30 to 40 million people in yaodong homes carved into hillsides during the early 2000s.
For these residents, the cave is not a place of hiding but a site of quiet survival and deep connection to the environment. These communities represent a resilient human tradition that continues to offer a functional alternative to traditional surface architecture.
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Sources
- Summary by Intellect · source: Cave People | It’s Hard to Believe Humans Still Live Like This | 4K
- Also: What we can learn from the world’s vanishing cave dwellers
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