Nagoro Scarecrow Village

Nagoro is a depopulated hamlet at about 800 metres elevation in the Higashi-Iya area of Miyoshi. A local resident began making life-size cloth-and-straw dolls decades ago, and over the years several hundred were placed throughout the village. The figures are arranged in everyday scenes, such as working in fields, waiting at a bus stop, or sitting in the former school, and they now outnumber the few remaining human residents. The village illustrates the depopulation and ageing of remote mountain communities in Japan. There is no admission charge to walk through the hamlet. It lies deep in the mountains and is most practically reached by car, with limited parking near the former Nagoro school ground.