Nagoro or Nagoru, now known as Nagoro Doll Village ( ja, 名頃かかしの里), is a

village A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town (although the word is often used to describe both hamlets and smaller towns), with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to ...

in the

Iya Valley The Iya Valley (祖谷 ''Iya'') region in Tokushima Prefecture, Japan is a scenic area known for its dramatic mountain valleys, thatched roof farmhouses and historic vine bridges. Although access has improved in recent years, the Iya Valley and ...

on the island of

Shikoku is the smallest of the four main islands of Japan. It is long and between wide. It has a population of 3.8 million (, 3.1%). It is south of Honshu and northeast of Kyushu. Shikoku's ancient names include ''Iyo-no-futana-shima'' (), '' ...

Tokushima Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located on the island of Shikoku. Tokushima Prefecture has a population of 728,633 (1 October 2019) and has a geographic area of 4,146 km2 (1,601 sq mi). Tokushima Prefecture borders Kagawa Prefecture to the north, E ...

, Japan. It is known for the large number of realistic

doll A doll is a physical model, model typically of a human or humanoid character, often used as a toy for children. Dolls have also been used in traditional religious rituals throughout the world. Traditional dolls made of materials such as clay and ...

s positioned throughout the village, which have made it a tourist attraction. The village is located on Route 439 in the Iya Valley, a remote mountainous area. It formerly had about 300 inhabitants, but the decline in Japan's population has caused that to fall to 35 by January 2015, 30 , and 27 by September 2019. In the early 2000s, Tsukimi Ayano, whose family left the area when she was a child, moved back to Nagoro to look after her father, and made a doll in his likeness that she placed in a field. She has since made more than 400, including replacements, and about 350 are in the village. Many are also likenesses of residents or former residents, while others are invented people. Soon, others followed in Ayano's footsteps. The village school, which closed in 2012, includes a large number of dolls; in one classroom, two children are self-portraits by the last two students to study there, who dressed them in their own clothes. Other dolls include three men sitting at the base of a

telephone pole A utility pole is a column or post typically made out of wood used to support overhead power lines and various other public utilities, such as electrical cable, fiber optic cable, and related equipment such as transformers and street lights. It c ...

on the outskirts of the village, a man fishing in the river, a group in a

bus shelter A bus (contracted from omnibus, with variants multibus, motorbus, autobus, etc.) is a road vehicle that carries significantly more passengers than an average car or van. It is most commonly used in public transport, but is also in use for cha ...

, and utility workers performing roadwork. The village has become a tourist attraction and is now known as Nagoro Doll Village. The nearby

Nagoro Dam Nagoro Dam is a gravity dam located in Tokushima prefecture in Japan. The dam is used for power production. The catchment area of the dam is 21.2 km2. The dam impounds about 9 ha of land when full and can store 1367 thousand cubic meters of wat ...

was completed in 1961 and is used for

hydropower Hydropower (from el, ὕδωρ, "water"), also known as water power, is the use of falling or fast-running water to Electricity generation, produce electricity or to power machines. This is achieved by energy transformation, converting the Pot ...

generation. In 2020, the village was featured in the final episode of '' James May: Our Man in Japan'', where a scarecrow based on

James James is a common English language surname and given name: *James (name), the typically masculine first name James * James (surname), various people with the last name James James or James City may also refer to: People * King James (disambiguat ...

' likeness was made for him.

References

External links

*
Nagoro
on

Google Street View Google Street View is a technology featured in Google Maps and Google Earth that provides interactive panoramas from positions along many streets in the world. It was launched in 2007 in several cities in the United States, and has since expa ...

{{coord, 33.855910, 134.019827, display=title Tourist attractions in Tokushima Prefecture Visionary environments