Northern Japan · Fukushima · Nihonmatsu

Nihonmatsu Lantern Festival

二本松の提灯祭り

The grand festival of Nihonmatsu Shrine in Nihonmatsu, Fukushima. Seven festival floats, each hung with some 300 lanterns, are pulled through the old castle town to the sound of festival music, lighting the autumn night red. Held every year over the first Saturday, Sunday and Monday of October.

2–4 October 2027

335 days away

Every year, the 1st Saturday of October, for 3 days

Future dates: 2 October 2027 · 7 October 2028 · 6 October 2029

Origin

Niwa Mitsushige, who became lord of Nihonmatsu Castle in 1643, believed that good government began with fostering reverence for the gods among his people. In 1661 he combined the Hachiman and Kumano shrines from within the castle and moved them to the present site as the guardian shrine of the whole domain, open for anyone among his people to worship at. The festival is held to have begun in 1664, when the shrine’s portable shrine was carried out and sacred drums were beaten through the streets. Once held over three days from the 14th of the eighth lunar month, it moved to 4 to 6 October after the great Nihonmatsu fire of 1918, and since 2019 has taken place over the three days from the first Saturday in October. Its festival music was designated an Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property of Fukushima Prefecture in 1987, and the festival as a whole in 2011.

What to look for

On the first night, the eve festival, the seven floats take the sacred fire from Nihonmatsu Shrine into their red lanterns and process through the town, some three thousand lanterns between them. The floats are decorated with carvings and gold leaf, and at night carry around 300 lit lanterns on a frame above the eaves, with a bamboo pole called a suginari, some 11 metres high, rising from the roof and hung with eight more lanterns at its tip. The lanterns hold real candles, and young men climb onto the roofs to replace them deftly, more than 1,500 candles per float in a single night. On board, the young men on the big drum and flutes and the children on small drums and gongs play set pieces for climbing a slope, going down one and moving along the flat. The eve is the only night all seven floats run together, and it ends with them gathering in front of Nihonmatsu Station. On the second day, the main festival, the portable shrine is carried through the town and the floats line up at the foot of the shrine’s stone steps. On the third night the floats split into groups of four and three for joint processions, and the music goes on late into the night.

How to watch

This is the grand festival of Nihonmatsu Shrine, and each float is pulled by the young men of its own neighbourhood. The organisers ask spectators not to touch the floats, not to step over their ropes, not to push or force their way through the crowd, not to smoke while walking, to put rubbish in bins or take it home, and to follow the instructions of the young men, police and traffic stewards. In some places you may be able to help pull a float’s rope alongside the young men; if so, do not wear another neighbourhood’s hand towel. No rain policy is published, but in 2024 the floats ran as planned through heavy rain, covered with sheets to protect the lanterns.

If you go

If you go, go on the first night, the eve festival: it is the only night all seven floats light their lanterns and tour the town together. It begins at 5 p.m., when the floats gather in the town centre and their lanterns are lit all at once with the sacred fire from Nihonmatsu Shrine. Nihonmatsu Shrine is about 3 minutes on foot from Nihonmatsu Station on the JR Tōhoku Line. Free temporary car parks open at the city office, Kasumigajō Park and elsewhere during the festival, and you are asked not to park on the street. Check the float routes and times on the route map published each year by the Nihonmatsu tourism federation, and follow the floats’ live positions on the map provided during the three days.

Where

Nihonmatsu Shrine and central Nihonmatsu

Nihonmatsu, Fukushima

Open in maps

Sources

← All festivals