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Toyama is the capital of Toyama Prefecture on the Sea of Japan coast, a city backed by the high peaks of the Tateyama range and famous for its traditional medicine trade, its glass art and as the gateway to the Tateyama Kurobe Alpine Route through the Northern Alps.
In the Edo period the area belonged to the domains of the Maeda clan, which promoted the making of medicine and paper, and with the kitamaebune trading ships Toyama became known across Japan as the province of medicine. The city was almost completely destroyed in an air raid in August 1945 and was rebuilt after the war.
Visitors see the castle park, the Glass Art Museum and the canal park of Kansui with its twin-tower bridge, ride the Portram to the old port of Iwase and enjoy the view of the mountains from the Kureha Hills. Day trips lead to the Alpine Route, the Kurobe Dam and gorge and the thatched villages of Gokayama.
Toyama Castle is the site of a flatland castle first built in 1543 in the centre of Toyama, now a public park. Its white keep is a concrete mock tower built for the Toyama Industrial Exposition of 1954, which now houses the city's local history museum and is a registered cultural property.
Fugan Canal Kansui Park is a prefectural park opened in 1997 on the old boat basin at the end of the Fugan Canal, north of Toyama Station. The wooden Tenmon Bridge crosses its water between two 20-metre towers linked by a red string telephone, and it is one of Japan's top 100 historic parks.
The Toyama Glass Art Museum opened in 2015 in the centre of Toyama, a city whose glass industry grew from bottles for its famous medicine trade. Its sixth-floor Glass Art Garden shows large installations by the American glass artist Dale Chihuly, three of them made for Toyama.
The Toyama Prefectural Museum of Art and Design opened in 2017 beside Kansui Park and links art with design, with works by Picasso, Miró and Munakata Shikō as well as posters and chairs. From its rooftop garden and glass front there are views across the park to the Tateyama mountain range.
The Kureha Hills rise from the Toyama plain beside the city, reaching 145 metres, and are a favourite place for walks, drives and cycling. The viewpoint in Kureha-yama Park looks over Toyama to the Tateyama mountains, living up to the city's slogan of a front-row seat for Tateyama.
The Toyama Municipal Folkcraft Village in the Kureha Hills is a cluster of nine museums, galleries and halls run by the city. Among them is a museum of Toyama's medicine trade, whose peddlers made the city known across Japan, along with folk craft, folk life and art collections.
Iwase is the old harbour district in the north of Toyama, reached by the Portram tram line. As Iwase port it was counted among the famous Seven Harbours of old Japan, and in the Edo period it thrived as a port of call for the kitamaebune trading ships that sailed the Sea of Japan.
The Toyama Portram is the tram line that runs from Toyama Station north to Iwasehama on the Sea of Japan coast, through the old port of Iwase. Rebuilt on fully renewed track with new trams, it is regarded as the first true light rail line in Japan and an easy way to reach the port.
The Tateyama Kurobe Alpine Route is a 37 km mountain route from Tateyama in Toyama to Ōmachi in Nagano, opened in 1971 and climbing as much as 1,975 metres. It crosses Mount Tate in the Hida Mountains past walking trails and the Kurobe Dam, the tallest dam in Japan.
Kurobe Dam is a hydroelectric dam on the Kurobe River in the Kurobe Gorge, between the Tateyama and Ushiro-Tateyama ranges of the Northern Alps, at 1,454 metres above sea level. Built over seven years at the cost of 171 lives, it was completed in 1963 and at 186 metres is the tallest dam in Japan.
The Kurobe Gorge Railway is a narrow-gauge line running up the Kurobe River through the deep Kurobe Gorge in eastern Toyama Prefecture. It opened in 1923 to carry materials for power plants on the river, and since 1953 its small trains have carried visitors deep into the gorge.
Gokayama is a mountain area in the city of Nantō in Toyama Prefecture, listed in 1995 as a UNESCO World Heritage Site with nearby Shirakawa-gō for its thatched gasshō-zukuri farmhouses. Its hamlets of Ainokura and Suganuma became national Historic Sites in 1970 and are still lived in.
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