History Main / MayorOfAGhostTown

** In one of the short films made with the sequel, a man left in this situation kills himself out of loneliness. As he's dying he hears the helicopters returning.

* The smallest community in Germany to have its own mayor is Hallig Gröde, an island in the North Sea, population ''9''. It used to have a bit more people on it in the past. In 1825 there were 90 people. Papers love to interview the "mayor" for tourism pieces.

* Burgess Meredith's character in the ''[[Series/TheTwilightZone Twilight Zone]]'' episode "Time Enough At Last" finds himself in this position after surviving a nuclear attack by virtue of being in a bank vault at the time, much to his pleasure (at first).

* Toys/{{BIONICLE}} plays with this in the description of what the Toa Of Light was flying around doing in other dimensions. The villanious/HeelFaceTurn applying Toa Tuyet in an alternate dimension specifically ignored and never mentioned outside of descriptions of said alternate dimension) specifically says (while contemplating drowning everyone in the alternate universe) that she would be ruling over an empire of corpses.

* The infamous Yi City of ''Literature/MoDaoZuShi'' has Xue Yang, a PsychopathicManchild who killed the remaining residents or poisoned them with corpse powder, turning them into living corpses. He remained in the city because [[spoiler:it was where he'd lived happily with his nemesis-turned-object of affection (only possible because he'd taken advantage of his enemy's newfound blindness to conceal his identity) for some years, but when his identity had been revealed, he'd emotionally tormented the object of his affections until his victim was DrivenToSuicide]].

* In order to be able to take the maxmum amount of taxes in the State Treasury from the Federal government, who wanted to create a nuclear waste storage center, the government of UsefulNotes/{{Nevada}} created in 1987 the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullfrog_County,_Nevada county of Bullfrog]] out of Nye County, around the completly unhabited Yucca Mountain, where the waste had to be sent, and set the land value tax to the maximum. This county, deprived of any population and infrastructure such as roads, had its seat at Carson City, the capital, and its officials were named by the central government. In 1989 the [[UsefulNotes/AmericanCourts Nevada Supreme Court]] ruled the fact Bullfrog County had no resident made it unable to have a representative government, [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome making the creation of this county unconstitutional]].

* In order to be able to take the maxmum amount of taxes in the State Treasury from the Federal government, who wanted to create a nuclear waste storage center, the government of UsefulNotes/{{Nevada}} created in 1987 the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullfrog_County,_Nevada county of Bullfrog]] out of Nye County, around the completly unhabited Yucca Mountain, where the waste had to be sent, and set the land value tax to the maximum. This county, deprived of any population and infrastructure such as roads, had its seat at Carson City, the capital, and its officials were named by the central government. In 1989 the [[UsefulNotes/AmericanCourts Nevada Supreme Court]] ruled the fact Bullfrog County had no resident made it unable to have a representative government, [[RealityEnsues making the creation of this county unconstitutional]].

** Moe became Emporer of the starved lawless en-domed Springfield by chucking grenades at anyone who challenges his authority in ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsonsMovie''.

* In ''VideoGame/TheLastOfUs, Joel and Ellie end up in the ruins of Lincoln, Massachusetts, where Joel's "friend" Bill lives. He is the only remaining resident and even refers to Lincoln as "MY town".

** Monowi, Nebraska is the only incorporated municipality in the United States with such a population.

* Shade is not the [[GoMadFromTheIsolation last survivor]] of desertified resort town Oasis in ''VideoGame/{{Borderlands 2}}''. There's plenty of colorful characters who are [[BlatantLies totally alive and not mummified corpses]]. They have [[HearingVoices such great conversations]] while [[SuspiciouslySpecificDenial not slowly dying of thirst.]] Please stay!

* Distinct possibility in ''VideoGame/DwarfFortress''. Most fortresses will eventually suffer catastrophes and get wiped out, but in case one of the inhabitants became a vampire, he/she is much likely to survive and keep the fortress going as the sole inhabitant as he/she requires no sustenance.

* ''Series/RedDwarf'' follows this premise. A radiation leak [[EverybodysDeadDave kills the entire crew]] of a [[CityOfAdventure ship the size of a city]], leaving only the initial cast.

* Rotten boroughs: Until 1832, some British [=MP=]s had constituencies with very few voters, due to the towns having declined centuries earlier. E.g. Old Sarum, Wiltshire, had only seven voters and no standing houses. At least one borough was ''entirely underwater'', having been erased by coastal erosion at some point since its creation. Meanwhile, [[SuddenlySignificantCity formerly unimportant little towns]] that had expanded to cities of twenty thousand people or more had no [=MPs=] at all. It was another seventy years before Parliament thought of creating a civil service department to periodically adjust constituency boundaries based on census data rather than waiting until the issue was threatening to cause civil unrest, but to their credit they never let it get ''quite'' that bad again.

* Rotten boroughs: Until 1832, some British [=MP=]s had constituencies with very few voters, due to the towns having declined centuries earlier. E.g. Old Sarum, Wiltshire, had only seven voters and no standing houses. At least one borough was ''entirely underwater'', having been erased by coastal erosion at some point since its creation. Meanwhile, [[SuddenlySignificantCity formerly unimportant little towns]] that had expanded to cities of twenty thousand people or more had no MPs at all. It was another seventy years before Parliament thought of creating a civil service department to periodically adjust constituency boundaries based on census data rather than waiting until the issue was threatening to cause civil unrest, but to their credit they never let it get ''quite'' that bad again.

* Rotten boroughs: Until 1832, some British [=MP=]s had constituencies with very few voters, due to the towns having declined centuries earlier. E.g. Old Sarum, Wiltshire, had only seven voters and no standing houses.

* In order to be able to take the maxmum amount of taxes in the State Treasury from the Federal government, who wanted to create a nuclear waste storage center, the government of UsefulNotes/{{Nevada}} created in 1987 the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullfrog_County,_Nevada county of Bullfrog]] out of Nye County, around the completly unhabited Yucca Mountain, where the waste had to be sent, and set the land value tax to the maximum. This county, deprived of any population and infrastructure such as roads, had its seat at Carson City, the capital, and its officials were named by the central government. In 1989 the [[AmericanCourts Nevada Supreme Court]] ruled the fact Bullfrog County had no resident made it unable to have a representative government, [[RealityEnsues making the creation of this county unconstitutional]].

* In order to being able to take the maxmum amount of taxes in the State Treasury from the Federal government, who wanted to create a nuclear waste storage center, the government of UsefulNotes/{{Nevada}} created in 1987 the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullfrog_County,_Nevada county of Bullfrog]] out of Nye County, around the completly unhabited Yucca Mountain, where the waste had to be sent, and set the land value tax to the maximum. This county, deprived of any population and infrastructure such as roads, had its seat at Carson City, the capital, and its officials were named by the central government. In 1989 the [[AmericanCourts Nevada Supreme Court]] ruled the fact Bullfrog County had no resident made it unable to have a representative government, [[RealityEnsues making the creation of this county unconstitutional]].

* In order to being able to take the maxmum amount of taxes in the State Treasury fron the Federal government, who wanted to create a nuclear waste storage center, the government of UsefulNotes/{[Nevada}} created on 1987 the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullfrog_County,_Nevada county of Bullfrog]] out of the Nye County, around the completly unhabited Yucca Mountain, where the waste had to be sent, and set the land value tax to the maximum. This county, deprived of any population and infrastructure such as roads, had its seat at the Carson County, the capital, and its officials were named by the central government. On 1989 the [[AmericanCourts Nevada Supreme Court]] ruled the fact Bullfrog County had no resident made it unable to have a representative government, [[RealityEnsues making the creation of this county unconstitutional]].

* Impaz from ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTwilightPrincess'', the last inhabitant of the Hidden Village, who turned down a chance to escape from her Bulblin-occupied village so she could give the Ancient Sky Book to the [[ChosenOne messenger of the heavens]] (a.k.a. [[TheHero Link]]).
** King Daphnes Nohansen Hyrule from ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTheWindWaker'' is the only person left in Hyrule after it got sealed beneath the Great Sea, using his position to guide Link and awaken Zelda. [[spoiler:He decides to use the Triforce to drown Hyrule and himself in order to save Link and Zelda and defeat Ganon]].

%%* Thumper's ending in ''TwistedMetal''.
* The mayor of Shanbar in ''ReturnToZork.'' The eastern half of his town has completely disappeared, the western half is empty except for himself and three other survivors, and you're the first visitor he's seen in ages.