Greater Tokyo · Kinugawa, Nikko (Tochigi)No.372★★Open in map →
Tobu World Square
— famous buildings rebuilt at one twenty-fifth scale
An outdoor miniature park near Kinugawa Onsen in Tochigi, holding 102 buildings from around the world at 1:25 scale, including twenty-one World Heritage sites, populated by roughly 140,000 miniature figures.
The premise is simple enough to sound like a joke and is executed with a seriousness that stops being funny about five minutes in. A hundred and two buildings from around the world, all built at exactly one twenty-fifth of full size, laid out in six zones you walk through in sequence: modern Japan, America, Egypt, Europe, Asia, and historical Japan. Twenty-one of them are World Heritage sites. The scale is the whole point, because 1:25 is the ratio at which a building becomes something you look down on rather than up at — St Peter's, the Parthenon, Notre-Dame and the Pyramids all reduced to the height of a person, arranged so you can see the roof and the plan at once. Around them are roughly a hundred and forty thousand miniature figures, each about seven centimetres tall, going about their business: crowds on the steps, workers on scaffolding, someone always doing something absurd if you look closely. The tallest object in the park is the Tokyo Skytree, which even at 1:25 still stands over twenty-five metres and is visible from most of the site. It is a strange thing to visit as a foreign traveller, because you will inevitably walk past a miniature of somewhere you have actually been — and the effect of seeing it in a Japanese forest, in the same frame as the Great Wall and Toshogu, is not what you expect.
Why it stays quiet
It looks like a novelty and is usually skipped by foreign visitors as a domestic family attraction, but the craft standard is genuinely high and it is one of the few places where the sheer patience of Japanese model-making is on public display at full scale. Practically, it also solves the Kinugawa problem: onsen towns are dead during the day, and this is a two-hour daytime activity a minute from the train.
Background & history
The park opened in 1993 near Kinugawa Onsen, a hot spring town in northern Nikko that was looking for daytime attractions to hold visitors who came for the baths. Buildings were reproduced from measured drawings and photographs at a consistent 1:25 scale, and the collection has been added to over time as new landmarks were completed — the Tokyo Skytree model was built after the real tower opened. In 2017 the Tobu Kinugawa Line opened a dedicated station, Tobu World Square, directly beside the entrance, making the park reachable in a single ride from Asakusa with a one-minute walk at the end.
What to look for — in walking order
- The Tokyo Skytree at 1:25
- the tallest model in the park, still over 25 m at one twenty-fifth scale, and the landmark you navigate by inside
- The World Heritage collection
- twenty-one World Heritage sites among the 102 buildings — the Pyramids, the Parthenon, the Taj Mahal and others in walking distance of each other
- The 140,000 figures
- seven-centimetre people staged everywhere in the park; the detail rewards stopping and looking rather than walking through
- The Japan zone
- Japanese landmarks at the same scale, including buildings you may have seen full-size elsewhere on the same trip
How to enjoy it
Two hours is about right; three if you stop to look at the figures, which is the part that separates people who enjoy this from people who find it silly. Go on a clear day — it is entirely outdoors and there is very little shelter. The park pairs naturally with an overnight at Kinugawa Onsen, which is two stops further up the line, so the usual plan is the park in the afternoon and the hot springs in the evening. If you are travelling with children, this and Edo Wonderland are the two daytime anchors of the Kinugawa area.
How to actually get there
- Tobu Asakusa Station → Tobu World Square Station (Tobu Limited Express, ~2 hr; check that your train stops here).
- Tobu World Square Station → the park entrance (~1 min on foot).
- Walk the six zones in order, ending back at the entrance (~2 hr).
- Optionally continue two stops to Kinugawa-Onsen Station for the night.
- Tobu limited express direct from Asakusa
- Tobu Asakusa Station →(Tobu Limited Express 'Spacia Kinu' toward Kinugawa-Onsen, ~2 hr)→ Tobu World Square Station. Limited express seats are reserved, so buy them in advance at the Asakusa counter or online. The park entrance is about one minute on foot from the station.
- Same line back, or two stops on to the onsen
- Tobu World Square Station →(Tobu Limited Express toward Asakusa, ~2 hr)→ Tobu Asakusa Station. Not every limited express stops at Tobu World Square, so check the timetable — local trains on the Kinugawa Line also serve the station and connect at Shimo-Imaichi. If you are staying over, Kinugawa-Onsen Station is two stops further north.
Before you go
- Cash
- Admission is charged and tickets are sold at the gate; discounted advance tickets are usually available online and through Tobu. IC cards work on the Tobu lines but limited express tickets are a separate purchase. Carry some cash for the park's food stands.
- Closing days
- Opening hours are roughly 9:00 to 17:00 and shorten in winter, with last admission an hour before closing — check the official information page for the current season. The park is fully outdoors, so heavy rain or snow makes for a poor visit, and it occasionally closes for maintenance.
- Another way
- The through-service limited express from Shinjuku via the JR and Tobu lines also runs to the Kinugawa Line. By car the park is on National Route 121 with its own car park, about 20 minutes from the Imaichi interchange on the Nikko-Utsunomiya Road. Local buses from Kinugawa-Onsen Station also stop here.
- After you get off
- Tobu World Square Station is a small station built for the park; there is one exit and the entrance is directly across from it. The route through the park is a fixed loop, so you will end back where you started.