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Tokorozawa is a city in southern Saitama Prefecture, Japan, about 30 km west of central Tokyo on the Musashino Terrace, known as the birthplace of Japanese aviation and home of the Saitama Seibu Lions. Its top sights are Sayama Fudōson, the Tokorozawa Aviation Memorial Park and museum, the Kadokawa Culture Museum and Lake Sayama.
Settled some 20,000 years ago, the area was crossed by the Kamakura Kaidō and saw the Battle of Kotesashi in 1333. In the Edo period it lived on sericulture and trade at a crossroads of roads from Edo to Hachiōji, Chichibu, Kawagoe and Fuchū, and in 1911 Japan's first airfield opened here.
Tokorozawa covers 72.11 km² and had about 343,000 people in 2024, and its closeness to Tokyo makes it a popular commuter town. Lake Sayama lies mostly within the city, and the Sayama Hills on its edge are one of the models for the scenery of My Neighbor Totoro.
Sayama Fudōson is a Tendai temple in Tokorozawa, Japan, founded in 1975 on part of the old UNESCO Village, where Yasujirō Tsutsumi gathered historic buildings from around Japan. Its gates from shōgun Hidetada's Taitoku-in mausoleum at Zōjō-ji are Important Cultural Properties.
Yamaguchi Kannon, formally Konjō-in, is a Shingon temple in Tokorozawa, Japan, next to Sayama Fudōson, whose Kannon hall is said to have been founded by Kūkai between 810 and 824. Its main hall dates from 1762, and its secret thousand-armed Kannon is shown only once every 33 years.
Hatogamine Hachiman Shrine is a shrine in Tokorozawa, Japan, believed to date to 921 as a branch of Iwashimizu Hachimangū. Nitta Yoshisada prayed here in 1333 before his campaign against the Kamakura shogunate, and its hilltop main hall from the Muromachi period is among Saitama's oldest buildings.
Tokorozawa Shinmei Shrine is the guardian shrine of Tokorozawa, Japan, known as the Ise shrine of Musashi Province and linked by legend to Yamato Takeru praying to Amaterasu. Its 1902 main hall is among the largest shinmei-style shrines in Kantō, and pilots have prayed here since 1911.
Tokorozawa Aviation Memorial Park is a 50.2-hectare park in Tokorozawa, Japan, opened in March 1978 on the site of Japan's first airfield of 1911, the largest prefectural park in Saitama. It has the aviation museum, a Japanese garden with the Saishōtei teahouse and a 1.95 km running course.
Tokorozawa Aviation Museum is a prefectural museum in Tokorozawa Aviation Memorial Park in Tokorozawa, Japan, opened in 1993 to mark the birthplace of Japanese aviation. It shows real aircraft, including the only surviving Type 91 fighter, with flight simulators and a large-screen theatre.
Kadokawa Culture Museum is a museum designed by Kengo Kuma at Tokorozawa Sakura Town in Tokorozawa, Japan, a pop-culture complex of Kadokawa and the city that fully opened on 6 November 2020. It has an 8-metre-tall library of over 50,000 books that turns into a bookshelf theatre.
Yanase-sō is the former country villa of businessman and tea master Matsunaga Yasuzaemon in Tokorozawa, Japan, given to the Tokyo National Museum in 1948. Among moss gardens and bamboo it keeps a late Edo village headman's house moved here in 1930, an Important Cultural Property.
Lake Sayama, formally the Yamaguchi Reservoir, is a man-made lake in Tokorozawa, Japan, completed in 1934 in a valley of the Sayama Hills to supply water to Tokyo. Two hamlets were moved away to build it, and in 2007 it and nearby Lake Tama were chosen as civil engineering heritage.
Takinojō Castle is a Sengoku-period castle ruin on a wooded cliff above the Yanase River in Tokorozawa, Japan, a prefectural historic site since 1925. A branch castle of Hōjō Ujiteru, it fell to Toyotomi forces in 1590, and its moats now lie in a park with plum and cherry trees.
Belluna Dome is the home ballpark of the Saitama Seibu Lions in Tokorozawa, Japan, set into the Sayama Hills by digging out the slope for its stands. Opened as the roofless Seibu Lions Stadium and later roofed, it has no walls, so home runs can fly right out of the dome.
Seibu-en is an amusement park in Tokorozawa, Japan, opened in 1950 as Higashimurayama Bunka-en and renamed in 1951. Renewed in May 2021 as a retro theme park, it has a Shōwa-era marketplace street, a Godzilla motion-simulator ride and a children's area based on the work of Osamu Tezuka.
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