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The Smallest Parks In The World
And the battle to obtain and retain the crown
In a world where things continue to grow larger and grander in scale, one race is seeing things get smaller and smaller. There has been a competition, a race to the bottom, to create the smallest park in the world. For many years, the world’s smallest park was located in Portland, Oregon, at the intersection of SW Naito Parkway and Taylor Street.
The Portland park is known as Mill Ends Park (pictured above). In 1948, the site was intended for an electric light pole, a novel new invention at the time. When the pole failed to be installed, weeds sprouted in the opening and created an eyesore. Such failures of local government are common. In order to help spruce up the neighborhood, writer Dick Fagan, a columnist for The Oregon Journal, planted flowers in the hole and named it after his regular column titled “Mill Ends".
The “park” became a local attraction and a beloved part of the neighborhood.
In 1971, the Guinness Book of Records awarded Mill Ends Park the honor of being the smallest park in the world. The park is just 452 square inches in size. The park held the title for 54 years until it was dethroned by a new diminutive greenspace located in Japan.
