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Hiratsuka is a city of about 257,000 people on the Shonan coast of Kanagawa Prefecture, where the Sagami River meets Sagami Bay. The Tōkaidō Line runs through it to Tokyo, and the hills of Shōnan-daira rise on its western edge, with Mount Fuji visible across the water on clear days.
The Tōkaidō highway crossed the plain here, and Hiratsuka-juku was one of its post towns. In the 20th century a naval powder works made the city a target, and an air raid in July 1945 burned it down. The tanabata festival begun in 1951 grew out of the celebrations that marked its rebuilding.
Visitors come above all in early July, when thousands of paper streamers fill the shopping streets. At other times they climb to the lookouts of Shōnan-daira, walk the beach, see the Kannon temple of Kōmyō-ji and the shrines of Hachimangū and Sakitori, and visit the roses of Kana Garden.
The Shonan Hiratsuka Tanabata Festival fills the centre of Hiratsuka for three days in early July, when about 3,000 decorations and 83 huge bamboo displays hang over the Shonan Star Mall. Started in 1951 as the city rebuilt after the war, it is one of the three great tanabata festivals of Japan.
Hiratsuka Hachimangū is the chief shrine of Hiratsuka, in Sengen-chō near the station, traditionally founded after a great earthquake in the 4th century and dedicated to Emperor Ōjin. It is one of the five great shrines of old Sagami, and Minamoto no Yoritomo prayed here in 1192 for a safe birth.
The Hiratsuka Museum of Art is the city art museum of Hiratsuka, opened in 1991 in the cultural quarter near the library. Its theme is the art and light of the Shonan coast, and it holds works by painters linked to the area such as Seiji Chōkai, Tetsugorō Yorozu and Ryūsei Kishida.
The Hiratsuka City Museum opened in 1976 beside the art museum in Hiratsuka and takes as its theme the nature and culture of the Sagami River basin. It shows the geology, wildlife, archaeology and folk life of the plain, has a planetarium under its dome, and admission is free.
Shōnan-daira is the hilltop at about 180 metres on the western edge of Hiratsuka, laid out as a park in 1957 on Mount Awatari. From its television tower and rest-house lookouts visitors see Sagami Bay, Mount Fuji, the Hakone and Tanzawa mountains and Enoshima, and cherry trees fill it in spring.
Kōmyō-ji, known as Kaname Kannon, is a Tendai temple in the west of Hiratsuka and the seventh stop of the Bandō Kannon pilgrimage. Tradition says a diver found its Kannon image in the sea in 702. Its Kannon hall of 1498, restored in 1697, holds a carved shrine that is an Important Cultural Property.
Sakitori Shrine stands on the old bank of the Sagami River in Hiratsuka and is listed in the Engishiki of 927 as a shrine of Sagami Province, ranked fourth of its five great shrines. It is one of the very few in eastern Japan to worship Prince Uji no Wakiiratsuko, and gives its district its name.
Shonan Ginga Ōhashi is the cable-stayed road bridge over the Sagami River between Hiratsuka and Samukawa, opened in 1998 and widened in 2007. Its name, the Shonan Galaxy Bridge, was chosen from more than 2,000 public entries for the wide view from its two tall towers.
Hiratsuka Beach Park is the stretch of Shonan shore at the south end of Hiratsuka, with a long sandy beach facing Sagami Bay. Courts for beach volleyball and other sand sports are laid out on it, swimmers come in summer, and Mount Fuji appears beyond the water on clear days.
Kana Garden, the Kanagawa prefectural flower and greenery centre, opened in 2010 on the site of a farm research centre in the north of Hiratsuka. Its rose garden of 1,300 kinds is at its best in early May, and the grounds are laid out around the gardening life of the Czech writer Karel Čapek.
Hiratsuka Fishing Port lies at the mouth of the Sagami River in Hiratsuka, with the new harbour of Hiratsuka Shinkō opened beside it in 2000. Its boats work big set nets and seine for whitebait in Sagami Bay, and Mount Fuji stands over the breakwaters on a clear morning.
Hiratsuka Sogo Park is the large public park in the middle of Hiratsuka, on land once used by the wartime naval powder works. It holds the stadium of the football club Shonan Bellmare, a ballpark, a Japanese garden, a small zoo and a cherry lawn, and is the city's main place for sport.
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