Sylvanian Families (シルバニアファミリー, Shirubania Famirī) (known as Calico Critters in the US and Canada) is a line of collectible anthropomorphic animal figurines made of flocked plastic.^[1] They were created by the Japanese gaming company Epoch in 1985 and distributed worldwide by a number of companies.

At the beginning of production, on March 20, 1985, Sylvanian Families were created and released in Japan by Epoch, which uses the concept of dollhouses and anthropomorphic animal figures. The first releases of the dollhouses and other playsets were made of porcelain and the furniture was made of wood, but later releases replaced the materials with plastic and metal in the production. The toys were later released in North America the same year, but with different packaging and minor differences to the characters themselves. The toyline was originally titled Pleasant Friends of the Forest Epoch System Collection Animal Toy Sylvanian Families (森のゆかいな仲間たち エポック社 システム・コレクション・アニマルトーイ・シルバニアファミリー, Mori no yukaina nakama-tachi Epokku-sha shisutemu korekushon animaru tōi shirubania famirī), but was changed to its current name. "Sylvanian" means "of the forest", from the Roman god Silvanus.