Beginnings

When Disneyland opened in Anaheim in 1955, Japanese businessman Kunizo Matsuo visited the park, and was so impressed with what Walt Disney made, that he envisioned something like it to be perfect in Japan. He then got into talks with Walt to franchise a Disney park in Japan, and it seemed well, as Disney then supposedly had Imagineers create concepts for the park, but the deal fell through, likely due to licensing issues. Still wanting to open a Disney-like park, Matsuo decided to move forward with the plans, whilst removing any Disney intellectual properties.

On July 1, 1961, Nara Dreamland was opened to the public. The entrance to the park was designed to look almost identical to Disneyland, including its own versions of the Train Depot, Main Street, U.S.A., and the familiar Sleeping Beauty Castle at the hub. It also had a Matterhorn-type mountain (with a Matterhorn Bobsleds-type ride, called Bobsleigh) with a Skyway running through it, as well as an Autopia-type ride and a monorail.

The park also had its own mascots, Ran-chan and Dori-chan, two children dressed as bearskin guards.

The park was initially popular due to its similarities to Disneyland, which did not have a location in Japan at the time. At its peak, the park had 1.7 million visitors a year.

Decline

In 1979, The Oriental Land Company made contact with The Walt Disney Company to create a Disney theme park in Tokyo.

After Tokyo Disneyland opened in 1983, the number of visitors to Nara Dreamland slowly began to decrease, as more people were interested in going to the said Disney park. This marked the beginning of the downfall for Dreamland, with attendance numbers dropping to around a million visitors a year.^[2] MEC, including Nara Dreamland, was bought by the supermarket chain Daiei in 1993.

In 2001, Tokyo DisneySea opened next to Tokyo Disneyland, and Universal Studios Japan opened as well in Osaka, the latter of which is about 40 kilometers away from Nara Dreamland. After those two parks opened, Dreamland's attendance numbers worsened, plummeting to 400,000 visitors a year.^[2]

In 2004, the park began to decline in quality; some stores closed down, some attractions began to rust, and service trucks would be left abandoned with no one using them.

On August 31, 2006, the park permanently closed. It was left abandoned for 10 years before its demolition in October 2016.^[3]