Post-Mining Objects as Geotourist Attractions: Upper Silesian Coal Basin (Poland)

Postindustrial tourism and postmining in particular, is a very intensively developing branch of geotourism. It includes tourism of stone quarries, mine sites, exploitation hollows, and postexploitation areas with specific buildings, infrastructure, and culture that brings out their geo-educational, cognitive, and esthetic values. The area of the Upper Silesian Coal Basin (USCB) is a perfect spot for the development of postmining geotourism due to: 1 Hundreds of years of ore (iron, zinc, lead), and bituminous coal mining history, 2 Traditional culture developed in relation to mining activity, 3 Landscape filled with postmining buildings and infrastructure, such as shaft towers, miners' housing estates, underground passages of different levels, types, and ages, as well as coal and ore mining waste dumps, and so on. In this chapter, we present the main attractions of the USCB region, already very popular among tourists, like: