The Most Curious Places in Asia
6 places in 4 countries · updated 13 October 2026
In short: By our ranking, the most curious places in Asia are Holyland Model of Jerusalem (Israel), Tokyo DisneySea (Japan) and Rock Garden of Chandigarh (India). The list covers 6 curious places in 4 countries. Japan has the most, with 3. Last updated 13 October 2026.
Curious places are made by obsession, play and imagination rather than necessity, and Asia has produced some of the most original. A Japanese passion for craftsmanship in miniature, the visionary work of self-taught builders, and a long tradition of religious sculpture used to teach and astonish have all given rise to places that are hard to compare with anything else. Several are the work of a single person who kept building for decades.
In Chandigarh, the road inspector Nek Chand began secretly building a garden of sculptures from broken ceramics, bangles and scrap on government land in the 1950s; when it was discovered, the city made it public, and it is now the Rock Garden. Near Vientiane in Laos, Buddha Park gathers more than two hundred concrete Hindu and Buddhist figures, including a huge reclining Buddha, built by the mystic Bunleua Sulilat. At the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, the Holyland Model recreates the city of the late Second Temple period at a scale of 1:50.
Japan provides three very different kinds of make-believe. Tokyo DisneySea is built around a smoking volcano and ports themed on the seas of legend and exploration. Tobu World Square near Nikko presents scale models of world landmarks, from the pyramids to skyscrapers, filled with tiny human figures. The Hakone Open-Air Museum sets modern sculpture across mountain lawns and includes a pavilion devoted to Picasso.
In this list
| # | Place | Type | Country | UNESCO |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Holyland Model of Jerusalem | Miniature park | Israel | |
| 2 | Tokyo DisneySea | Amusement park | Japan | |
| 3 | Rock Garden of Chandigarh | Sculpture garden | India | |
| 4 | Hakone Open-Air Museum | Sculpture garden | Japan | |
| 5 | Buddha Park | Sculpture garden | Laos | |
| 6 | Tobu World Square | Miniature park | Japan |
01 Holyland Model of Jerusalem
Israel · 0.7 km from Jerusalem31.773° N 35.202° E
Image by reijotelaranta from Pixabay The centrepiece is Herod's Temple on its vast platform, a reconstruction so widely reproduced that for many people it has become the picture of the Second Temple.
Did you know? From 1974 the archaeologist Yoram Tsafrir took charge of the model and oversaw its revisions as new excavations came to light.
02 Tokyo DisneySea
Japan · 14.2 km from Tokyo35.627° N 139.888° E
CasinoKat · CC BY-SA 3.0 The theme is the sea in myth, legend and history, and the park is organised into "ports" rather than lands. Visitors enter through Mediterranean Harbor, a waterside village in the style of Venice and the Italian coast, facing Mount Prometheus, a volcano that serves as the park's icon and periodically erupts.
Did you know? Instead of a single main street leading to a central hub, the entrance at Mediterranean Harbor opens out in a V shape around the water.
03 Rock Garden of Chandigarh
India · 4.3 km from Chandigarh30.752° N 76.807° E
Anilsahu84 · CC BY-SA 4.0 The work was illegal and could have been bulldozed. Instead, public enthusiasm won the day: the garden was formally opened on 24 January 1976, and Nek Chand was given a salary, an official title and a team of labourers to carry on full time.
Did you know? Once the garden was legalised, Chand received the official title of Sub-Divisional Engineer, Rock Garden, along with a workforce of about fifty labourers.
04 Hakone Open-Air Museum
Japan35.245° N 139.052° E
leon&mae · CC BY 2.0 The outdoor collection reads like a short history of twentieth-century sculpture. Henry Moore's bronze Reclining Figure: Arched Leg lies in the grass, Aristide Maillol's Action Enchained twists on its plinth, and Joan Miró's Personnage stands nearby. Barbara Hepworth, Constantin Brâncuși and the Japanese masters Taro Okamoto, Kōtarō Takamura, Rokuzan Ogiwara and Churyo Sato are all represented.
Did you know? The sculpture grounds cover about 70,000 square metres, roughly seven hectares of lawns and slopes in the Hakone hills.
05 Buddha Park
Laos · 4.7 km from Nong Khai17.912° N 102.765° E
Jakub Hałun · CC BY-SA 4.0 The cast of characters is wide: humans, gods, animals and demons, many images of the Buddha, the bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara, and figures from Hindu mythology including Shiva, Vishnu and the hero Arjuna. The centrepiece is a reclining Buddha some 40 metres long, stretched out across the lawn. The most memorable structure is a huge round form often compared to a pumpkin, entered through the gaping mouth of a demon's head about three metres tall.
Did you know? Bunleua was born in 1932 in Nong Khai province on the Thai side of the Mekong, the seventh of eight children.
06 Tobu World Square
Japan · 31.9 km from Utsunomiya36.808° N 139.712° E
Jiang Dong-Qin · Public domain The park is arranged as a walk through zones: Modern Japan, America, Egypt, Europe, Asia and Japan. The Japan zone is the largest, with 34 exhibits, and Europe follows with 32, so that landmarks separated by thousands of kilometres stand a few steps apart.
Did you know? A model of Tokyo Station has running Shinkansen and Chūō Line trains, part of a network of moving miniature railways across the park.
How this list is ranked
Places are chosen for how they look, not for how famous they are: each one has its own description and a photograph credited to its author. The order is a single world ranking that weighs the beauty of the place in curated photography together with how widely it is documented — the number of language editions of its encyclopedia article and how often that article is read in a year. The list is rebuilt as places are added, so the order and the counts on this page are always current.
Questions people ask
- What are the most curious places in Asia?
- On our list, Holyland Model of Jerusalem (Israel) ranks first, followed by Tokyo DisneySea (Japan) and Rock Garden of Chandigarh (India).
- Which country has the most curious places in Asia?
- In our collection, the most come from Japan (3), India (1) and Israel (1).
- Who built the Rock Garden of Chandigarh?
- Nek Chand Saini, a government road inspector, began building it secretly around 1957 from waste materials such as broken tiles, crockery and bottles. When the authorities discovered it in 1975, they opened it to the public instead of demolishing it.
- What does the Holyland Model of Jerusalem show?
- It shows Jerusalem as it was believed to look in 66 AD, at the end of the Second Temple period, at a scale of 1:50. Built in the 1960s, it was moved to the Israel Museum in 2006.
- What is inside the giant pumpkin at Buddha Park?
- The large round structure at Buddha Park in Laos has three levels representing hell, earth and heaven. Visitors enter through a demon's mouth and climb to a viewpoint on top.
- How many curious places are on this list in Asia?
- The list covers 6 curious places in 4 countries. Japan has the most, with 3.