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Sendai is the capital of Miyagi Prefecture and the largest city in Japan's Tōhoku region, famous as the castle town of the warlord Date Masamune and as the City of Trees, with zelkova-lined avenues such as Jōzenji-dōri. Each August it also hosts the largest Tanabata festival in Japan.
The modern city was founded in 1600, when Masamune moved his seat here and began a castle on Mount Aoba above the Hirose River. The Date clan ruled the Sendai Domain from it for some 270 years. In 1945 air raids destroyed the castle's last gates and the Date mausoleums, which were later rebuilt. In 2011 the great Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami struck the city's coast. Today Sendai is home to about 1.1 million people and to Tohoku University.
Start at the castle ruins for the view, then visit Zuihōden and the gilded Ōsaki Hachimangū. Walk the leafy avenues downtown, and in summer or December catch the streamers of Tanabata or the Pageant of Starlight. Spend a day in the gorges and hot springs of Akiu or Sakunami.
Aoba Castle Ruins crown Mount Aoba above the Hirose River in Sendai, where Date Masamune began his castle after 1600. The seat of the Date clan for some 270 years, it lost its last gates in the 1945 air raids. Its stone walls, a mounted statue of Masamune and a wide city view remain.
Zuihōden is the mausoleum of Date Masamune, founder of the Sendai Domain, on the wooded Kyōgamine hill across the Hirose River from the castle site in Sendai. Built in 1637 in ornate Momoyama style, it was burned in the 1945 bombing and rebuilt in 1979, as were the tombs of his heirs nearby.
Ōsaki Hachimangū is a Shinto shrine in Aoba-ku, Sendai, built between 1604 and 1607 by Date Masamune with craftsmen from Kyoto. Its black-lacquered main hall, richly carved, painted and gilded, is a National Treasure. On 14 January it hosts the Dontosai, when New Year decorations are burned.
Rinnō-ji is a Sōtō Zen temple in Aoba-ku, Sendai, founded by the Date clan in 1441 and moved here in 1602 after Masamune founded the city. Burned in 1876, it was revived from 1903. Its garden, one of the finest in Tōhoku, has the Hanshakuan tea house and a three-story pagoda raised in 1981.
Jōzenji-dōri is a broad avenue in central Sendai whose four rows of zelkova trees, planted in 1958, now arch over the road. The 46-meter-wide boulevard has a shaded promenade along its median. With Aoba-dōri, it is a symbol of Sendai as the City of Trees and a stage for many city events.
Sendai Mediatheque is a public library and arts center on Jōzenji-dōri in Sendai, designed by the architect Toyo Ito and opened in January 2001. Its glass box rests on tube-like steel columns of different sizes, and its seven open floors hold a library, galleries, a cafe and studios.
Sendai Tanabata Festival is held in Sendai every year from 6 to 8 August, when huge paper streamers hang along the shopping arcades of Ichibanchō and Chūō-dōri. One of the three great festivals of Tōhoku, it draws more than two million visitors, with fireworks on the night of 5 August.
Sendai Pageant of Starlight lights up the zelkova trees of Jōzenji-dōri in Sendai each December with hundreds of thousands of LED bulbs. Begun by citizen volunteers in 1986, it is still run mostly on donations from companies and residents, and it draws more than 2.8 million visitors each year.
Akiu Onsen is a hot spring resort in Taihaku-ku, Sendai, about 30 minutes by car from the city center, on terraces above the Natori River. Once called the Natori bath, it is one of the three famous springs of Ōshū, and some of its inns date from the 1600s. Day bathing is popular.
Rairaikyō is a gorge on the Natori River beside Akiu Onsen in Sendai, about 20 meters deep and 2 km long, with named rocks and waterfalls along the way. A 650 m walking path runs downstream from the Nozoki Bridge. The scholar Komiya Toyotaka gave the gorge its name in 1931.
Akiu Great Falls drops 55 meters on the upper Natori River in Taihaku-ku, Sendai, about 12 km upstream of Akiu Onsen. A national Place of Scenic Beauty and one of Japan's top 100 waterfalls, it is reached by a 1 km path past a Fudō temple. It can freeze over in early February.
Sakunami Onsen is a hot spring resort in the hills of western Sendai, its inns scattered along a narrow river terrace of the Hirose River. Legend says the priest Gyōki found the springs in 721 and that Minamoto no Yoritomo rested his troops here in 1189. It is served by the JR Senzan Line.
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