Located in Tochigi Prefecture, the Tobu World Square theme park offers you a 1/25-scale reproduction of the world’s most beautiful monuments. On the programme: miniatures of more than 100 iconic buildings, including 42 UNESCO World Heritage sites. But that’s not all! Behind these reproductions, an army of little characters animates each scene with delightful realism.
At a glance, bam! The most famous monuments from the four corners of the world!
The park is divided into six zones, each representing a region of the world: historical Japan and modern Japan, the United States, Europe, ancient Egypt, and Asia.
In the historical Japan zone, visitors can see some of the archipelago’s important cultural sites such as Himeji Castle, Dogo Onsen, and the temples of Kyoto. The modern Japan zone, meanwhile, displays contemporary architecture such as the Diet Building, the Tokyo Dome, the Akasaka Palace, and the Tokyo Tower.
On the American side, no fewer than 13 building replicas, including the White House, part of downtown New York, and the late lamented Twin Towers of the World Trade Center.
The Europe zone is the largest and most diverse in the park. It is full of ancient wonders with the Parthenon, the Colosseum, and a few more modern emblems such as the iconic Eiffel Tower.
Ancient Egypt is represented by the great pyramids, the Sphinx of Giza, and the temple of Abu Simbel. In Asia, you travel from the Great Wall of China to the Forbidden City, then on to India and Korea.
Incredibly realistic reproductions
The park prides itself on extreme attention to detail, going so far as to mix marble powder into certain materials (notably for the Greek Parthenon) to appear as realistic as possible. But most of the buildings on display are made of fibre-reinforced plastic (“FRP”).
The quest for authenticity doesn’t stop at building reproductions: each scene is animated with a multitude of characters. Just 7 cm tall, these figures take their place in realistic, sometimes amusing tableaux.
Police officers wander the streets of New York while Marilyn Monroe lookalikes pose in shop windows. Politicians and journalists on the steps of the Diet. Sherlock Holmes-like detectives perched on rooftops in England. A troupe of monks in front of a Tibetan monastery. The miniatures populate the world’s monuments with a real sense of staging.
Each monument has its “little residents.” One of the park’s games is to spot a few characters who stand out, in a “Where’s Waldo?” fashion.
The realism of these faithfully recreated monuments is so impressive that the whole world has been fooled. In December 2013, a photo of the Sphinx of Giza covered in a thick blanket of snow rocked social networks. It was in fact a hoax, and the photo actually came from Tobu World Square.
Tobu World Square is in Nikko, two hours from Tokyo: it fits neatly into a single day, like the nine others in my easy Tokyo day trips.
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