Wonderland Lost: The Abandoned Beijing Amusement Park is Razed

Demolition of Wonderland (all images via zbinfo.net)

We hate to see a good abandoned amusement park go, but we regret to report that the ghostly remains of China’s attempt at a sprawling Disneyland has been demolished. On April 20, the destruction of Beijing Wonderland Amusement Park began, and by now most of the park has been reduced to foundations. 

Wonderland was intended to be Asia’s largest amusement park, yet due to complications it was abandoned midway into construction in 1998. Since then the skeletal form of a doppelgänger to Disney’s Cinderella’s Castle and other buildings, including a small whimsical village, were left to abandonment. Except rather than just loom eerily, Wonderland was taken over by farmers who planted cornfields that waved beneath the empty spires. 

Wonderland in 2012 (photograph by Zoetica Ebb/Alternative Beijing)

All of that is now gone, and according to International Business Times, a “luxury product supermarket” is now planned for the site. While the world of surreal locales has definitely had a loss, there are still plenty of abandoned amusement parks out there for intrepid urban explorers (check out our essential guide to them), but none have quite the same merger between people retaking the land and failed projects that was Wonderland.

Below are more images of the demolition, all courtesy zbinfo.net. For a glimpse of what was, check out the Secret Guide to Alternative Beijing’s video visit to Wonderland.

Remains of the Wonderland village

Wonderland in rubble

The top of a whimsical village home

RIP EERIE DECAY: WONDERLAND, Beijing, China