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‘The Lost World’: New book highlights Japan’s abandoned rural spaces

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(CNN) — Simply saying the word “Japan” can bring up images of manga, maid cafes and neon lights.

But for Dutch photographer Maan Limburg, Japan is a series of rural landscapes punctuated by empty houses.

Her photographs of these places — from houses departed in the wake of natural disasters to closed-down theaters with the lights still cued up — are now featured in a book, “The Lost World,” which published in May.

Japan’s ghost houses

Japan has one of the oldest populations in the world, with an estimated one in every 1,500 people over the age of 100. As more young people move to the cities in search of jobs, rural areas have become more difficult to maintain.
And that’s not the only major force affecting Japan’s landscape. Events like earthquakes, typhoons and the Fukushima nuclear disaster have also caused widespread destruction or abandonment.

Enter the phenomenon of akiya, or ghost houses.

A 2014 government report sounded the alarm, saying that, should things continue at the present rate, about 900 villages and towns throughout Japan will be “extinct.”

Limburg didn’t just find empty homes — there were also abandoned businesses like this DVD store.

Maan Limburg/The Lost World

But even free houses aren’t necessarily the cure for Japan’s akiya situation. While other countries with aging populations, like Italy, have given away or sold very cheap houses to foreigners, they often come with a visa or residency permit attached. Japan’s houses, though, do not.

As a result, it can be hard to find people willing to live in the homes and fix them up, especially if they don’t speak Japanese or have access to a car.

Limburg, who is based in Utrecht, found herself irresistibly pulled to the lesser-known regions of Japan where many of these houses exist. She and her partner spent months there at a time, renting a car or van and driving through parts of the country that many tourists rarely explore.

Finding ephemera like calendars and newspapers can help Limburg figure out when a place was abandoned.

Finding ephemera like calendars and newspapers can help Limburg figure out when a place was abandoned.

Maan Limburg/The Lost World

Leaving the cities

Limburg says she “fell in love” with rural Japan.

“Every village we got to, the people were like, ‘What are you doing here? The nearest tourist attraction is 35 kilometers. We can send you there. We can draw you a map if you want to.’ It was just really nice to see this different side of Japan,” she says.

And once she began visiting smaller villages, it was practically impossible not to find empty homes or abandoned buildings….

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