Miniature parks and model villages are sort of like a pre-internet 3D Google Earth, allowing you to view a representation of a village or city sights from above.

So it’s no surprise that on visiting my local park, Bekonscot Model Village in Buckinghamshire, I was more excited than a 5-year-old let loose in a sweetshop. As I stomped around the 1930s English villages I wondered if I could see the park on Google Earth?

Sadly, the resolution of Bekonscot in Google Earth just isn’t high enough to make out any of the lilliputian houses, trains or airplanes. However, I discovered the village is a founding member of the International Association of Miniature Parks, and many of the other member parks have great resolution.

So, today we are going to explore International Miniature Parks, where we’ll see the best sights on the globe, just smaller and more fuzzy!

Mini Europe

Mini Europe is located in Belgium but features sights from the whole of the European Union including Big Ben, Mount Vesuvius, the Berlin Wall (complete with falling action) and the Eiffel tower (pictured in the thumbnail).

Miniatürk

Miniatürk is a miniature Turkey in the city of Istanbul. In the thumbnail is the miniature version of Atatürk Olympic Stadium.

Minimundus

Minimundus in Austria claims to offer the “most beautiful buildings of all 5 continents”. St Peter’s Square is easy to spot and the Opera house is also in there somewhere.

Still in Minimundus, The CN Tower’s height is being challenged by its neighbour the Eiffel tower, despite being almost twice the size in real life!

Rügen Park

At just 926 km² Rügen (Germany’s largest island) is only 2/3 the size of London, but if that’s just too much area for you to cover you can instead explore the tiny Rügen island at Rügen Park, located on the island of Rügen.

As an added bonus, to the west of the park you will find everywhere else, including the great pyramids, the Whitehouse and, pictured in the centre of the thumbnail, a pre-sinking Titanic.

Sardegna in Miniatura

Another miniature island within itself is Sardegna in Miniatura, which reproduces the Italian island of Sardinia.

Swiss Miniatur

Swiss Miniatur aims to “summarise Switzerland” in miniature form. Clearest in the Google Earth image is the Swiss Alps, located in the north-east of the park.

Italia in Miniatura

Back to Italy, Italia in Miniatura is located on a man-made island in the shape of Italy (of course), and features the country’s most famous landmarks. Look to the north of the mini-country and again you can just about make out the white peaks of the Alps.

Despite being a mini-Italy, they also have special section for a mini Eiffel tower. The resolution is too poor to make it out, but you’ve probably seen it enough already!

The rest…

For completeness, the other members of the International Association of Miniature Parks not featured today are the low-resolution Mini Israel, Miniatuur Walcheren, Pueblo Chico, Klein Erzgebirge, Miniature World, Catalunya in Miniatura, Pirenarium, and the previously featured excellent resolution Madurodam.

Further information on all the parks is available on the group website and Wikipedia has a large list of miniature parks which features many more.

These are the famous white cliffs of Pamukkale, Turkey. Literally meaning “cotton castle”, this natural phenomenon is a result of earthquakes here which created a number of hot springs – the waters of which are extremely rich in many minerals, particularly chalk. These minerals have been deposited on the cliff face over the centuries, creating something like an enormous, gleaming-white frozen waterfall, 2700 meters long and 160m high (you can see the effect in these bizarre ground level shots).

Despite a period of abuse by hoteliers and tourists, this has been a popular destination for those seeking to utilise the supposed medicinal properties of the waters ever since the ancient city of Hierapolis was founded on top of the white cliffs by the Phrygian Greeks, probably in the first half of the third century BC.

Hierapolis became part of the Roman empire around 190 BC, and the Hellenistic city was slowly transformed into a Roman town – complete with two Roman baths, a gymnasium, several temples, a main street with a colonnade and a fountain at the hot spring. Eventually Hierapolis became one of the most prominent cities in the Roman empire in terms of the arts, philosophy and trade, and consequently it grew to be wealthy – and at the height of its popularity, home to 100,000 inhabitants.

In 60 AD an earthquake destroyed the town’s theatre, so a new one was built into the hillside, and in the 1534, another earthquake destroyed the remains of the ancient city, and the ruins were slowly covered with a thick layer of limestone.

Today the whole town is undergoing extensive reconstruction, and the theatre is the centre of the activity, which remains to this day as one of the finest examples of original Roman theatre decoration.

Read more about Pamukkale and Hierapolis at Wikipedia, check out some fantastic ground level shots at Flickr, or you can even read a great description of many of the features of Hierapolis at The Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites.

Thanks to Tom Heisey, Simon Cope and Jane Turnbull.

This bridge near Istanbul, Turkey looks likes it been smashed to pieces! Presumably it’s under construction, and they’re floating the pieces out into place. Either that or it’s some sort of freaky swing-bridge…

Thanks to Max and Lauri Kangas.