The world’s smallest park (Japanese: 世界一小さな公園, Hepburn: Sekai-ichi Chiisana Kōen) is a park located in Nagaizumi, Shizuoka, Japan. There is a wooden bench, a black stone plate with a carving of flowers, and some vegetation in a 0.24 m2 (2.6 sq ft) square area surrounded by bricks.
The original smallest park in the world the Japanese one was inspired by has a nicer story behind it. Basicslly the city just weirdly made a small shoulder in between some new streets and someone noticed it and was like “heh, it’s like a small park” and started adding some park things to the spot. It eventually got recognized and ended up in the Guinness book of world records, where a Japanese guy saw it and thought “Hey, I can do that,” and then just purposely made an even smaller park.
If you’re thinking of Mill Ends Park in Portland it was because an ordered light pole never arrived, and the slot it was to go in by the road got weedy so a newspaper columnist next door filled the space with flowers.
In his column he gave this story of the park’s origin: He looked out the window and spotted a leprechaun digging in the hole. He ran down and grabbed the leprechaun, which meant that he had earned a wish. He said he wished for a park of his own, but since he had not specified the size of the park in his wish, the leprechaun gave him the hole