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[Manicmonkey]

Ok, they they weren't made by dwarves, well some were built by ancients/medieval people who were shortarses, but I digress. Found some inyeresting sites and articles about real underground cities, evrything from groups of carved out caves in hillsides (4 million or so chinese still live in caves!)to cities built in deserts to escape the heat or religious persecution, to massive cold war bunkers. Take a look.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derinkuyu_Underground_City
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96zkonak_Underground_City
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ihlara_Valley
http://www.bbc.co.uk/wiltshire/underground_city/  <-Aforementioned nuclear bunker, this site has a virtual tour of the site. Incredible stuff.
http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=159

Just a few there, anyone know of any others? Coober pedy may be worth checking out, for those who haven't heard of it. Its an opal mining town in the middle of the desert, about halfway between Adelaide and Alice springs (In Australia), where its too hot to live in a house comfortably. So people build homes underground to escape the heat, the temperature inside is usually a constant 20-odd degrees Celsius iirc, very comfortable imo.

Sorry about the length, but its a topic that fascinates me no end. (Probably because its summer and too damn hot!!)I'm sure at least a few of you will be interested as well that these insane underground fortresses we command aren't too fantastical after all.

[Torak]

quote:Originally posted by Manicmonkey:
<STRONG>http://www.bbc.co.uk/wiltshire/underground_city/  <-Aforementioned nuclear bunker, this site has a virtual tour of the site. Incredible stuff.</STRONG>

They shouldve called it Vault 13.

[Deon]

Wow, great projects and ideas were implemented (I speak about underground nuclear vault). I doubt our government ever tried to build something like this during the cold war. I think they made only personal bunkers for themselves  .

[Manicmonkey]

oh, i forgot about petra, in jordan i think. Its in one of the indiana jones movies, the whole city is carved into a ravine/canyon.Theres some rock cut temples in india too iirc

[xzzy]

There's a place called Coober Pedy in Australia, is a town built almost entirely underground. Inhabitants built their residences into opal mines after the veins ran out.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coober_Pedy

[Jonathan S. Fox]

I've entered one of the underground cities in Turkey. It served as a retreat from invading armies, and was complete with hiding places, blockable doorways, fake hallways (to cause confusion and trampling in invading armies), and other tricks and traps designed to fight off enemies that tried to fight their way into the caves.

[WillNZ]

There's a really neat city in Spain I went to called Ronda. It's not underground, but basically built around this giant gorge with all these beautiful houses hanging preciptiously over the edge. Beautiful place. Never heard of the underground turkish cities before.

[C0nscript]

quote:They shouldve called it Vault 13.

I see what you did there

[Manicmonkey]

Someone has to mod in nukes so we can see how our dwarfs will fare

[Cthulhu]

quote:Originally posted by Manicmonkey:
<STRONG>how our dwarfs will fare </STRONG>

They won't fare at all.

[aeroue]

Well it depends how good you bild your bunker.
Dwarf Apocalypse

[axus]

Here's a great story about draining your lake into a mineshaft:
http://oddorama.com/2008/02/25/the-worlds-weirdest-engineering-disaster/

[numerobis]

There's a bunch of villages built into cliffsides in Arizona and around there, also.  Very neat.

[Kalimar]

Here is an example of what happens when you channel magma through bituminous coal and having your entire fortress of tunnels constructed out of bituminous coal.

Smoke and an undying fire.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centralia%2C_Pennsylvania