Japan's Aoshima Island was never meant to be a tourist attraction. There are no restaurants, hotels or even cars on the island, but tourists from all over the world come to visit the island throughout the summer. What they all have in common is a love for cats.
The small island, nicknamed Cat Island, has a total of about 16 residents and about 120 cats. The island was originally mostly populated by fishermen who brought cats with them to deal with the mouse problem on their ships. Over the years, the fishermen mostly left the island, but the cats remained.
Apart from humans, cats are almost the only animals on the island, a fact that has made them fearless. They fill the streets and enjoy jumping on the tourists and begging for food. Despite the island's popularity, the human islanders are less happy with all the tourists and claim they can take care of the cats themselves.
Aoshima Island is not the only cat island in Japan; there are a few other islands that are mostly populated by cats, albeit for different reasons. On the island of Tashirojima, for example, there are a total of one hundred humans and over 100 cats. Residents of the island view tending to the cats as sacred and take good care of them. Local law even forbids owning dogs on the island so as not to scare the cats.