murmurYuzawa Tanabata Painted Lantern Festival
Yuzawa City · Central Yuzawa (Yanagimachi, Omachi and nearby streets)
Dates and details can change. Always check the official website before you go.
Yuzawa City · Last checked: Oct 10, 2026
Dates
Dates confirmed with official sources
- 2026
- Aug 5–7, 2026 （Ended） 15:00–21:00 (until 20:30 on August 7)
- 2027
- Dates have not been announced yet. Please check the official website.
- Usual timing
- Usually early August
- How the date is set
- Every year, August 5 – August 7
- Venue
- Central Yuzawa (Yanagimachi, Omachi and nearby streets)
- City
- Yuzawa City, Akita
About
A summer highlight in Yuzawa for some 300 years, this festival is said to have begun when a bride from the noble Takatsukasa family of Kyoto, married to Lord Yoshiyasu, seventh head of the Satake-Minami family of the Akita domain, hung five-colored paper strips on green bamboo out of longing for her old home. Over time, lanterns appeared under the eaves of homes, and by the Taisho and Showa eras every neighborhood in the Yuzawa district hung great painted lanterns and competed over their beauty. Each lantern, often painted with elegant portraits of women, takes more than a month to make. At dusk well over a hundred lanterns light up at once, and during the Tanabata Night the shopping arcade switches off its lights so the paintings glow alone in the dark, evoking the days before electricity.
Sources
- OfficialYuzawa City www.city-yuzawa.jp
Last checked: Oct 10, 2026. Event information is based on official announcements, but changes may not always be reflected here. Please check each official website for accurate details.
Other events this month
On the day, see what locals are murmuring on the murmur map
murmur is an app that shows short, anonymous posts on a map, right where they were written. On festival day, open the map around the venue and see what people nearby are saying.