Yamagata City right now

Sunday · 2026/11/01

Yamagata Hanagasa Festival

Festival · Yamagata · Tohoku

Yamagata Hanagasa Festival

The Yamagata Hanagasa Festival is a major August event: over 10,000 dancers parade nightly with flower-decorated hanagasa hats to taiko drums and folk song.

Yamagata · 5–7 Aug 2027

Temple · Yamagata · Tohoku

Yamadera (Risshakuji)

A Tendai temple of 860 built up a rock face in Yamagata, its halls reached by a stone stairway, and the place of Basho's poem about cicadas.

Yamagata

Public Facility · Yamagata · Tohoku

Yamagata City Office

Yamagata's main administrative center offering public services, local event information, and a gallery featuring works by regional artists and photographers.

Yamagata

Activity & Sport · Yamagata · Tohoku

Yamagata Zao Onsen Ski Resort

Ski resort at Zao Onsen, Yamagata, with slopes for all levels, a long season from November to May, hot springs and the snow-covered trees called juhyo.

Yamagata

Quick poll

Park & Garden

Mogami Park (Shinjo Castle Park)

The site of Shinjo Castle, seat of the Tozawa lords for 243 years, with surviving moats and earthworks, three shrines and cherry trees.

Shinjo · Yamagata

Castle

Kaminoyama Castle

Local history museum in a castle-style building on the site of Kaminoyama Castle, a former Mogami clan stronghold pulled down by the shogunate in 1692.

Kaminoyama · Yamagata

Shrine

Uesugi Shrine

Uesugi Shrine in Yonezawa honors the formidable warlord Uesugi Kenshin and was rebuilt in 1923 following a destructive fire.

Yonezawa · Yamagata

Onsen & Wellness

Ginzan Onsen

A nostalgic Taisho-era hot-spring town in the Yamagata mountains, lined with wooden inns along a gas-lit river - at its most magical under snow.

Obanazawa · Yamagata

Mountain

Mt. Haguro

The lowest of the three mountains of Dewa in Yamagata, climbed by a stone stair through old cedars, with a five-storey pagoda that is a National Treasure.

Tsuruoka · Yamagata

Shrine

Kumano Taisha Shrine

One of three major Kumano shrines in Japan, Kumano Taisha was established in 806 and is known as the Ise Shrine of the North for its significance.

Nanyo · Yamagata

Park & Garden

Matsugasaki Park

This Yonezawa park preserves castle ruins dating to the 17th century and features scenic views alongside cherry blossoms in spring.

Yonezawa · Yamagata

Mountain

Mt. Gassan

The highest of the three mountains of Dewa in Yamagata, sacred to the moon god, with a shrine at the summit that opens only in high summer.

Tsuruoka · Yamagata

Temple

Yamadera (Risshakuji)

A Tendai temple of 860 built up a rock face in Yamagata, its halls reached by a stone stairway, and the place of Basho's poem about cicadas.

Yamagata

Public Facility

Yamagata City Office

Yamagata's main administrative center offering public services, local event information, and a gallery featuring works by regional artists and photographers.

Yamagata

Activity & Sport

Yamagata Zao Onsen Ski Resort

Ski resort at Zao Onsen, Yamagata, with slopes for all levels, a long season from November to May, hot springs and the snow-covered trees called juhyo.

Yamagata