The world’s smallest city park, Mill Ends Park, is the size of a small suitcase or, to be exact, officially 3.13 square feet.
This diminutive 452 square inch park is in Portland, Oregon and, as you might expect, has a rather quirky origin. It begins with a journalist named Dick Fagan, who noticed a hole meant for a light pole outside his office window in 1948. When the pole failed to appear and weeds started to grow, Fagan took matters into his own hands and probably became the world's first urban 'guerilla gardener'. He planted flowers in the hole and declared it the “world’s smallest park.”
That bold claim was officially recognized on St. Patrick's Day 1976 by the city of Portland and named Mill Ends, after Fagan’s popular column in the Oregon Journal. If further proof was required (according to the people of Portland, it wasn't) Fagan's claim received international attention when Guinness World Records officially recognised it as the smallest park in the world. It serves as a delightful, whimsical reminder that beauty and significance can be found in the smallest of places.
The tiny park has featured many unusual items through the decades, including a swimming pool for butterflies - complete with diving board - a horseshoe, a fragment of the Journal building, and a miniature Ferris wheel, which was delivered by a full-size crane. On St. Patrick's Day in 2001, the park was visited by a tiny leprechaun leaning against his pot of gold and children's drawings of four-leaf clovers and leprechauns.