Curious Fact of the Week: World’s Smallest Park

The world’s smallest park is just two feet wide, smaller than the length of a baseball bat. It’s a circular space out in a median in Portland, Oregon, with a single tree and tiny foliage sprouting from its bit of greenspace in the street.

Mill Ends Park in 2008 (photograph by sfgamchick/Flickr user)

The curious park, called Mill Ends, was officially declared a city park in 1976. It had been around since 1948, when the shape of concrete was originally supposed to hold a light post that never came. Journalist Dick Fagan spotted the empty space and decided it could use some greenery, complete with an elaborate backstory of leprechauns that resided within. It’s continued to have plenty of small guests, including a tiny Occupy protest in 2011 complete with small tents and protest signs. 

The park out in its median in 2013 (photograph by Andy Nystrom)

Despite getting its official Guinness Book of World Records designation of world’s smallest park in 1971, Mill Ends has had some recent edging in on its tiny turf. Earlier this year, Princes Park in Burntwood, England, caused a stir when there was a pitch for it to in fact have the title, as it is more of a technical park with actual recreation space in its 15 by 30 feet, with one supporter even calling Mill Ends a ”glorified flower pot.” Those are fighting words! However, a Portland Parks and Recreation spokesman dismissed it as ”the world’s most benign international dispute.”

WORLD’S SMALLEST PARK: MILL ENDS PARK, Portland, Oregon

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