Western Village   Location: Japan

Western Village was an American West themed amusement park built a couple of hours north of Tokyo. It first opened to the public in the early 1970s as a family run business under the name Kinugawa Family Ranch. It consisted of a guest ranch, a few horses and a fishing pond, constructed to look like something out of the American West. As popularity of the ranch grew, so did the size of the grounds, slowly expanding to include various other structures in a specially built American West village including a sheriffs office, a barber shop, a bank and a hotel. There were also ghost houses, amusement arcades and restaurants making it a firm family favourite.

Kinugawa Family Ranch changed its name to Western Village in the late 1970s and enjoyed almost three decades as a popular tourist attraction. Staff would dress up as cowboys and put on shows for visitors along side moving, talking life like robots who also donned cowboy attire – kind of reminiscent of the popular movie Westworld. Finally Western Village closed its doors in 2006 and has sat decaying ever since.