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Get ready for kidnapping, romance and a jungle adventure – thanks to new film The Lost City.

The flick stars Sandra Bullock as novelist Loretta Sage and Channing Tatum as hunky model Alan Caprison in a tale about tracking down a priceless relic in a fictional city on a remote island.

Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe plays an evil billionaire who wants the loot for himself while Brad Pitt is a CIA operative and action man.

But the plot of a once-mighty metropolis boasting treasure that disappeared is nothing new.

For centuries there have been fables about real-life lost cities as James Moore reveals…

ATLANTIS

Greek philosopher Plato was the first to write about the famous lost city in 360BC.

He described Atlantis as an advanced civilisation and naval power, but claimed it eventually vanished beneath the waves because of floods and earthquakes.

Some archaeologists think the home of the DC Comics hero Aquaman might be based on a real city of the Minoans, ­destroyed by a huge volcanic eruption in 1600BC on the island of Santorini.

Other experts think it was in Spain and destroyed by a tsunami.

The notorious Bermuda Triangle has also been cited as a possible location after what appeared to be the remains of walls and streets on the North Atlantic ocean seabed were discovered.

Atlantis has been even linked to aliens and UFOS, while the nutty Nazis searched for it believing Atlantis to be the birthplace of their Aryan “super race”.

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EL DORADO

In the 1500s stories arose among Spanish explorers of a golden city bursting with riches and located in the jungles of South America.

It was rooted in local stories of a ruler in modern day Colombia who was so rich he covered himself in gold dust and washed it off in Lake Guatavita.

Adventurers tried to drain it in their bid to find the precious metal, while expeditions to find a city made from the gold in the region left hundreds dead.

Even British seafarer Sir Walter Raleigh joined the hunt in vain – twice.

Intriguingly recent research has ­suggested there are mysterious ruins of forgotten cities in the mountains of the Andes.

THE LOST CITY OF ‘Z’

In 1906 the Royal Geographic Society sent British explorer Percy Fawcett to survey the border between Brazil and Bolivia – but he soon became obsessed with the idea of a lost city.

He found a document from a Portuguese explorer who claimed to have visited such a place in the rainforests of the Mato Grosso in 1753.

It was described as covered in silver and boasting a network of bridges, roads and multi-storey buildings.

After several failed attempts to find what he dubbed “The Lost City of Z” Fawcett – played by Charlie Hunnam on the big screen – set off one last time in 1925, aged 58, only to disappear in the jungle.

Archaeologists have since found the remains of a fortified city known as Kuhikugu in Brazil, reckoned to have been home to 50,000 people.

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CAMELOT

For hundreds of years people have speculated about the true location of the castle and court of the legendary 6th century British ruler King Arthur.

Mentioned in texts since the 12th century, experts have since pointed to evidence that it might have been at Cadbury Castle in Somerset or in the cities of Colchester or Winchester.

Arthurian legend also tells of a lost land called Lyonesse, boasting 140 villages that – just like Atlantis – sank beneath the waves off Cornwall on one night in 1099.

AZTLAN

Dubbed the “American Atlantis,” tradition says Aztlan is where the Aztec civilization of modern-day Mexico originated.

The Aztecs apparently migrated from a luxurious city on a lake in 1064 prompted by signs in the sky.

But the location of the place that means “the land of the north” has remained a mystery.

Researchers now believe the round island city of Mexcaltitán de Uribe in the state of Nayarit might be the spot. Early manuscripts show Aztecs leaving in canoes from a place that looks very similar.

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JULFAR

This lost medieval port city of Arabia was associated with the fictional Sinbad the Sailor.

Historians know from documents it definitely existed somewhere in the Persian Gulf, had thrived for centuries and was home to 70,000 people, but also that it had later fallen into ruins.

In the 1960s archaeologists believed they found some of it under Ras Al Khaimah in the United Arab Emirates, but the rest lies tantalisingly somewhere under the dunes.

SHANGRI-LA

The name for a paradise hidden in a valley of the Himalayas was coined by Brit writer James Hilton in his 1933 novel Lost Horizon.

But it echoed ancient Tibetan scriptures that talked of the existence of a handful of such places where harmony secretly ruled.

Historian Michael Wood believes the abandoned Tibetan city of Tsaparang may be the origin of the myth.

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