Places With The Most Depressing Names On Earth

Sometimes places get names like "Celebration, Florida" and "Bountiful, Utah." And other times... well, other times, they end up on Sad Topographies, an Instagram account tracking the saddest place names on Earth. Think of names that sound like they could be from the Series of Unfortunate Events books : "Unfortunate Cove," "Dead Dog Island," and even something called "Mount Despair" are all real places that the account spotlights. It's enough to make you want to pack and take the most depressing vacation in the world — I hear the Sorrow Islands are nice this time of year! Or maybe you could just head down to Slaughter Beach!

The account doesn't go into how these places got their morose names, but if you do a little digging on your own, the stories are often really interesting — for instance, Slaughter Beach in Delaware was either named after someone with the last name "Slaughter," the annual mass death of crabs that are washed ashore there, or a cruel massacre of Native Americans. Other times, the name seems to exist just because the explorer was in a bad mood that day or something — for example, the Wikipedia page for Washington's Mount Despair just says "The mountain's name was given by Lage Wernstedt of the U.S. Forest Service who mapped the region in the 1920s." Doesn't sound that despairing to me, but what do I know?

Here are some of the best, most doleful names that Sad Topographies is spotlighting:

1. Crazy Woman Creek

There are various stories about how this Wyoming Creek got its name, but one says that it was the home of a Native American woman who went insane from living alone there.

2. Uncertain, Texas

Apparently, the name comes from surveyers who were unsure if they were in Louisiana or Texas.

3. Murder Island

Again, the origins if this name aren't clear, but supposedly many human remains were found there in mysterious conditions.

4. Bloody Dick Peak

The name is much better than the story — apparently it was named for an inhabitant of the area in the 1860s. Presumably his full name was Richard.

5. Nowhere Else, Tasmania

Believe it or not, there are two different places in Australia named "Nowhere Else." This is one of them.

Images: Kate Ter Haar/Flickr, SadTopographies/Instagram (5)