A Very Recent Vampire History

With the waves of vampire tales over the last few decades, it seems like a good time to look at where the modern day action is these days. I love ghost stories so this topic is also of great interest to me. Whether you are just interested in vampyres or if you may actually be a vampyre, there are some cool places to visit and find others of your kind. And by the way, there are two spellings for a number of reasons depending on which particular angle you believe in. First off, I should mention Forks, Washington as the setting for the popular “Twilight” book series as well as New Orleans for the classic novels of Anne Rice. Forks is one of the rainiest cities around and that made it a great choice for the series. It has also revived the small town. The Forks chamber of commerce is taking advantage of all the attention.

The subject of vampires can still be a very serious matter, especially in small localities where vampire superstition is still strong and sightings or claims of vampire attacks still occur frequently. Some stories still make headlines such as in Romania where a family recently dug up a corpse, tore out the heart, burned it, and mixed the ashes with water in order to drink it. Or near Venice, Italy where a 16th century corpse was recently discovered with a brick in her mouth. Now known in news stories as the Venice vampire, this tactic would cause the vampire to starve and not be a shroud eater.

The Vampyre and Numbers

Just because a book series is set somewhere does not mean that there are actually a bunch of vampires running around the streets. Fans and tourists yes. So I took a look at the actual numbers of population, clubs, groups and cult sites in the world and came up with this non-scientific list. This is the modern world so I’m not including Transylvania or Slovakia. There just isn’t the numbers to support vampire activity in those particular places any longer. I’m not including Wall Street either, which hosts another form of blood sucker these days that are not nearly as much fun.

The Top 30 Modern Vampyre Cities in the World

1. London, England
2. Toronto, Canada
3. Chicago, Illinois
4. Los Angeles, California
5. Atlanta, Georgia
6. New York City, New York
7. Houston, Texas
8. Melbourne, Australia
9. San Fransisco, California
10. San Antonio, Texas
11. Brisbane, Australia
12. Manchester, Great Britain
13. Seattle, Washington
14. Rockingham, North Carolina
15. Las Vegas, Nevada
16. Prague, Czech Republic
17. Rome, Italy
18. Stratford, Connecticut
19. Brockton, Massachusetts
20. Savannah, Georgia
21. Berlin, Germany
22. Oxnard, California
23. Charlotte, North Carolina
24. Detroit, Michigan
25. Sydney, Australia
26. Edinburgh, Great Britain
27. Cairo, Egypt
28. Mexico City, Mexico
29. Bucharest, Romania
30. Venice, Italy

So there you have my list. Do you know of any bloody hotspots that I missed? I’m sure some of the best aren’t plastered all over the internet and they shouldn’t be either to retain any sort of realism. The photos are all taken by myself, as part of my own dark interests, in various Eastern Europe locations.