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Takasaki is the largest city in Gunma Prefecture, Japan, on the Karasu River at the foot of Mount Haruna, famous as the hometown of the daruma doll and for its giant white Kannon statue. Its top sights are the Takasaki Byakue Dai-Kannon, Shōrinzan Daruma-ji, Haruna Shrine, Lake Haruna and the Kōzuke Sanpi stelae.
In the Edo period Takasaki was the seat of Takasaki Domain and prospered on the Nakasendō highway, with Shinmachi, Kuragano and Takasaki post stations within today's city. It was briefly the capital of Gunma after the Meiji Restoration and became a city on 1 April 1900.
Takasaki covers 459.16 km² and had an estimated 372,369 people in 2020; mergers in 2006 and 2009 stretched it to Lake Haruna. Known as a pasta town, it has held the King of Pasta contest every year since 2009, and its daruma fair at Shōrinzan opens each New Year.
Takasaki Byakue Dai-Kannon is a 41.8 m white Kannon statue on Kannonyama hill in Takasaki, Japan, built of reinforced concrete in 1936 by businessman Inoue Hosaburō and then the largest Kannon in the world. Visitors climb 146 steps past 20 Buddhist images to its shoulders for wide views.
Shōrinzan Daruma-ji is an Ōbaku Zen temple on a hillside in Takasaki, Japan, known as the birthplace of the lucky daruma doll. Its daruma hall shows dolls from across Japan, a great daruma fair is held each 6 and 7 January, and architect Bruno Taut lived in its Senshin-tei cottage from 1933.
Takasaki Castle was the castle of Takasaki Domain beside the Karasu River in Takasaki, Japan, built on the site of the older Wada Castle. Its Inui turret and east gate, sold off to farms, were later moved back, while the moat and earthen walls frame a 4.9-hectare park with about 300 cherry trees.
Gunma Music Center is a concert hall designed by Antonin Raymond and completed in July 1961 on the Takasaki Castle site in Takasaki, Japan, paid for partly by citizens' donations. Its folded-plate concrete roof spans 60 m, and DOCOMOMO Japan lists it among the country's key modernist buildings.
Haruna Shrine is the ancient shrine to the gods of Mount Haruna, at the south-west foot of the mountain in Takasaki, Japan, and recorded in the Engishiki of 927. Long a place of combined Shinto and Buddhist worship, it still keeps a three-storey pagoda from its temple days.
Lake Haruna is the caldera lake of Mount Haruna in Takasaki, Japan, about 4.8 km around at 1,084 m above sea level, second only to Lake Chūzenji among Japan's major lakes. Praised in poems since the Man'yōshū, it lies below the cone of Haruna Fuji and freezes over in deep winter.
Mount Haruna is a complex volcano in central Gunma, Japan, one of the three famous mountains of the region, rising to 1,449 m at Kamongatake above Takasaki. Its caldera holds Lake Haruna and the lava dome Haruna Fuji, and large eruptions in the 6th century buried villages below.
Minowa Castle is a hilltop castle site of about 47 hectares in Minowa-machi, Takasaki, Japan, built in 1512 by the Nagano clan. Its lord Nagano Narimasa repeatedly drove off Takeda Shingen, but the castle fell to the Takeda in 1566. It is a National Historic Site and one of Japan's 100 Fine Castles.
Kōzuke Sanpi are three inscribed stone monuments in Takasaki, Japan, the Yamanoue Stele of 681, the Tago Stele of about 711 and the Kanaizawa Stele of 726. The oldest of Japan's 18 surviving ancient stelae, they are Special Historic Sites and joined UNESCO's Memory of the World in 2017.
Hodota Kofun Cluster is a group of three large keyhole-shaped burial mounds in Takasaki, Japan, built from the late 5th to the early 6th century below Mount Haruna. The biggest, Futagoyama, is 108 m long with a double moat, and the group is a National Historic Site beside a museum of its finds.
Kamitsuke no Sato Museum is a history museum beside the Hodota Kofun Cluster in Takasaki, Japan, that brings 5th-century Gunma back to life. Its nine themed corners show haniwa figures, a chieftain's palace and villages buried by Haruna eruptions, and it holds a kofun festival each autumn.
Museum of Modern Art, Gunma opened on 17 October 1974 in the Gunma no Mori park in Takasaki, Japan, in a building by Arata Isozaki counted among his best works. It collects Japanese and Western modern art and artists from Gunma, and holds the Inoue collection of Japanese and Chinese antiques.
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