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Nagano is the capital and largest city of Nagano Prefecture in central Japan, famous as the temple town of Zenkō-ji and as host of the 1998 Winter Olympics. Its top sights are Zenkō-ji, Togakushi Shrine, the Kawanakajima Battlefield and the Sanada castle town of Matsushiro.
The city grew up around Zenkō-ji, whose hidden Amida image is said to be the oldest in Japan, and was also a post station on the Hokkoku Kaidō. The plain south of the city saw the Battles of Kawanakajima between Takeda Shingen and Uesugi Kenshin from 1553 to 1564, and Matsushiro was ruled by the Sanada clan for about 250 years.
Nagano became a city on 1 April 1897 and covers 834.81 km² of the Nagano Basin, with about 365,000 people in 2023. Its prefectural office stands higher than any other in Japan, and the Olympic M-Wave arena and the February Tōmyō lantern festival recall the 1998 Games.
Zenkō-ji is a Buddhist temple in Nagano, Japan, belonging to no single sect and run jointly by the Tendai and Jōdo sects. Its hidden Amida triad is said to be the oldest Buddhist image in Japan, a stand-in copy is shown every seven years, and an old saying urges a visit once in a lifetime.
Nagano Prefectural Art Museum stands in Jōyama Park just east of Zenkō-ji in Nagano, Japan. Founded in 1966 as the Shinano Art Museum, it reopened in a new building by Hiroshi Miyazaki completed in 2020, beside the Higashiyama Kaii Gallery designed by Yoshio Taniguchi in 1990.
M-Wave is the Nagano Olympic Memorial Arena in Nagano, Japan, built as the speed skating venue of the 1998 Winter Olympics. Its M-shaped roof evokes the Shinshū mountains on beams of local larch, it was Japan's first indoor 400 m double track, and it holds a free Nagano Olympic Museum.
Kitano Museum of Art opened in 1968 in the Wakaho district of Nagano, Japan, in a building by Junzō Yoshimura with a dry rock garden by Mirei Shigemori. Its 600-plus works include Japanese paintings by Uemura Shōen and Hishida Shunsō and Western art by Renoir, Chagall, Picasso and Rodin.
Togakushi Shrine is a group of five Shinto shrines around Mount Togakushi in the mountains of north-west Nagano, Japan, long a great centre of mountain ascetics. Its uppermost shrine, Okusha, is reached through a red gate and along an avenue of tall cedars said to be planted in the 17th century.
Kawanakajima Battlefield is the historic park at Hachimanpara in Nagano, Japan, where Takeda Shingen is said to have set his camp in the fourth Battle of Kawanakajima in 1561. A bronze statue in the Hachiman shrine grounds shows his legendary duel with Uesugi Kenshin, beside the city museum.
Ōmuro Kofun Cluster is a group of about 500 ancient burial mounds in Matsushiro, Nagano, Japan, a National Historic Site since 1997. Nearly eight in ten are mounds of piled stones, and 25 of the 40 known gable-roofed stone chambers in Japan are here, by a free museum open in spring to autumn.
Matsushiro Underground Imperial Headquarters is a wartime tunnel complex in Matsushiro, Nagano, Japan, dug from November 1944 to August 1945 to shelter Japan's government. About 7,000 Korean labourers worked on it beside some 3,000 Japanese, and the Zōzan tunnel is open to the public.
Matsushiro Castle, first known as Kaizu Castle, was built from 1559 by the Takeda clan by the Chikuma River in Matsushiro, Nagano, Japan, as a base in the Kawanakajima wars. From 1622 it was the seat of the Sanada lords of Matsushiro Domain for ten generations and is a National Historic Site.
Sanada Treasure Museum opened in 1969 in Sanada Park in Matsushiro, Nagano, Japan, to show the heirlooms given in 1966 by Sanada Yukiharu, 12th head of the Sanada family. It holds armour, swords, furnishings, paintings and about 50,000 old documents, near the Former Sanada Residence.
Chōkoku-ji is the Sōtō Zen family temple of the Sanada lords in Matsushiro, Nagano, Japan, founded by Sanada Yukitaka in 1547 and moved here in 1622. Its colourful mausoleum of the first lord Sanada Nobuyuki, built in 1660, and its gate are Important Cultural Properties of Japan.
Matsushiro Bunbu Gakkō is the domain school of Matsushiro, Nagano, Japan, opened in 1855 to train Sanada retainers in letters and martial arts. Of more than 250 domain schools in Japan at the end of the Edo period, it is the only one to survive almost intact, a National Historic Site since 1953.
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