Today, I will introduce Sugisawa Village, an abandoned village that’s not on the map but possibly exits deep inside the mountains in Japan.

An eerie entrance in the mountains leads to a haunted village where evil spirits lurk. If you wander into there, there is no guarantee that you will return safely…

Sugisawa Village (杉沢村) is the name of a village that is said to have once existed in Aomori Prefecture. It also refers to a series of urban legends associated with it as well.

It is reported that stories about Sugisawa Village had been spreading locally as rumours for some time, but with the spread of the internet around the late 1990s, stories about the village also began to attract attention on the internet.

In August 2000, the story was introduced on the TV programme called “Unbelievable (アンビリバボー)”, which covers all genres of mysterious experiences and introduces them as documentary-style videos, and this is said to have spread awareness of Sugiswa Village throughout Japan.

Sugisawa Village: The Haunted Village Erased from the Map- Japanese Urban Legend/Creepypasta

The rumour has it that there is a village called Sugisawa Village, deep in a mountain in Aomori Prefecture.

There is an old torii gate and a rock shaped like a skull under the gate. That is said to be the entrance to Sugisawa Village.

On the road to the village, there is a sign saying, “No one who enters from here is guaranteed to be back alive.” Further on, the abandoned village appears. Its ruins are covered with old bloodstains, suggesting that a tragedy took place in the past.

Sugisawa Village was actually inhabited until the early Showa period (1926-1989). One day, however, a young man suddenly became mad and started slaughtering villagers with an axe in his hand. The village was completely wiped out, leaving only the young man behind. The young man also took his own life in the end.

The Japanese Government took the situation very seriously at the time, and deleted all documents and records relating to Sugisawa village. And… even erased its existence from any maps.

However, it is said that the evil spirits of the murdered people and that crazy young man still live in this abandoned village and attack anyone who wanders there.

Once there was a man who went to the village but couldn’t escape from the villagers. He eventually lost his mind and is reportedly still in a mental hospital…

When the legend of Sugisawa Village began to attract attention on the internet in the late 1990s, a number of people actually tried to visit the village. Along with that, a place has been identified, based on the information given in the urban legend. This is an area called Obatazawa Kosugi (小畑沢小杉) in Aomori City, Aomori Prefecture.

This area is surrounded by mountains, but is not too far from Aomori Airport and Aomori city centre. The Torii gate, which is considered to be the entrance to Sugisawa Village, is located right next to a paved road and can also be easily reached.

Beyond the Torii gate, there is a stone monument inscribed, as well as several other stones. However, the skull-shaped rock under the torii, which is mentioned in the legend, cannot be found. (Well, there might be a rock that looks like a skeleton if you really try hard to force yourself to see it that way though…)

If you go further into the village, you will find what looks like a small red-roofed hut, but it is only a single house and does not look like a part of an abandoned village, and there are no bloodstains as described in the legend as well.

↓ You can see the Torii gate here in the Google Maps street view.

By the way, one theory says Sugisawa Village is not the actual name of the village, but a common name for this Kosugi area.

In the past, people used to say, “Sugisaa Iku (杉さぁ行く)”, which means “going to the Kosugi area” in the local dialect of the area. The theory is that this “Sugisaa” changed to Sugisawa as time passed.

In the urban legend of Sugisawa village, its entrance is said to have a torii gate and a skeleton-shaped rock. As mentioned earlier, such a distinctive rock cannot be found under the Torii gate in the Kosugi area, but it can be found somewhere not far from it. This is Ishigami Shrine (石神神社), which is also in Aomori City and is about 40mins away from the Torii gate, according to a Google Map search.

In the main area at the end of a long flight of stairs, a large stone of about 2 metres in height is enshrined. The rock has two round stones that look like eyeballs, and the appearance as a whole is suprisingly like a human face.

As a torii gate also exists at this Ishigami Shrine, some believe that this is the entrance to Sugisawa Village. Although this is a weak theory, as there is no connection with the origin of the name Sugisawa Village or other features mentioned in the legend, but it may have been an element in the formation of the Sugisawa Village legend.

↓ You can see what the rock looks like in some user-uploaded photos on Google Maps (well, I can’t directly post it here then…)

A major element of the Sugisawa Village legend must be that the madman killed all the villagers.

In the Kosugi area, there are no records of such tragic incidents. On the other hand, in the history of Japanese crimes, there is a murder case that is said to have been the source of this element. That is Tsuyama Massacre (津山事件).

Tsuyama Massacre is a mass murder case which happened in 1938 in Kamo village, Okayama prefecture.

A young man, Mutsuo Toi (都井 睦雄), grew frustrated with the residents who treated him ill and spread rumours about him, attacked them one after another with shotguns and Japanese swords. He killed 30 residents and finally took his own life, for which reason, this case is also called “Tsuyama 30 murderer (津山三十人殺し)”.

Tsuyama Massacre shares similarities with the Sugisawa Village legend in terms of the mass murder in a village by a madman and his suicide in the end. Despite the differences in many respects, including the locations (Okayama and Aomori prefectures are more than 1,200km away), it is easy to imagine that this major incident in Japanese criminal history is the source of the formation of the Sugisawa Village legend.

When it comes to Japanese urban legends about villages, there is another famous one, which is called Inunaki Village (犬鳴村).

Inunaki Village is said to be located in Fukuoka, close to the terrifying haunted spot Inunaki Tunnel. Rumour says there are villagers that have gone mad and would attack anybody who enters there.

The legend of Inunaki Village is said to have started to be told around 1999, which coincides with the late 1990s when the legend of Sugisawa Village started to be told. This period was also the dawn of the internet in Japan, then we can see that both stories became well-known throughout the country due to the rapid spread of the internet.

By the way, both villages have one thing in common: Anyone who enters is attacked. The difference is that in Sugisawa Village, the attack is from the ghosts or spirits of past villagers, while in Inunaki Village, it is from mad villagers who may actually still exist today.

↓You can check out this related article to deep dive into Inunaki Village!

Nobody is sure about if Sugisawa village as told in the legend may or may not actually exist. However, when the legend is unravelled, it can be seen to be related to the areas and the incidents in real life, and is a true urban legend that continues to grow through the internet.

Anyway, you may or may not follow; this is just a rough warning here. Do not even try to go to Sugisawa Village and… Do not enter it even if you find the entrance to the village…

↓Check out these related articles as well to find out more about Japanese urban legends/creepypastas!