More than 20 per cent of Japan, an area the size of Denmark, has no readily contactable owner
https://www.ft.com/content/3aaa626e-f61f-11e7-8715-e94187b3017e
The land isn't lost, it just hasn't been assigned a title-holder by a governmental/judicial style land estate legal system. Not all bad really. The land doesn't have "value" as assigned by a human economic system.
?ÿIf you Google up 'Japan's Lost Lands' you can read the article without having to subscribe to the Financial Times.
?ÿ
Locally we have a Black Bayou and the bed of the waterway and backwaters are black as coal because of the black gumbo mud.
That black covered area in that picture is polluted waste filled dead material.
Can be found in isolated areas across all Asia countries with heavy population.
Mostly they have laws in effect that land must be used for some reason and if not the Government will take it away and make a deal with someone else to take it over and put it to use.
That land is not worth and will not grow anything.