Nagano

Nagano is Japan's fourth-largest prefecture by area and borders eight others, more than any other prefecture. It has no coast; instead it is a mosaic of high mountains and basins. The Hida Mountains (Northern Alps) run along its western border, the Kiso and Akaishi ranges (Central and Southern Alps) through its south, and volcanoes such as Asama, Yatsugatake and Ontake rise around its edges. Most people live in the basins of Nagano, Matsumoto, Ueda, Saku, Suwa and Ina and along the Kiso valley.

This geography made Shinano a land of passes and highways. The Nakasendō crossed it through the Kiso valley, where post towns such as Tsumago and Narai survive, and pilgrims came from all over Japan to Zenkō-ji in Nagano City. The mountains later drew Western climbers and missionaries, who helped create Japan's first highland resorts at Kamikōchi and Karuizawa.

Modern Nagano combines precision industry around Lake Suwa, orchards and highland vegetables, and a large tourism economy built on the Alps, hot springs and winter sports. The 1998 Winter Olympics brought the Shinkansen to Nagano City and made resorts such as Hakuba and Nozawa internationally known.

The prefecture is named after Nagano, originally a village on the plain in front of Zenkō-ji whose name is usually explained as "long field". The prefecture corresponds to the old province of Shinano, still widely used in the form Shinshū.

After the abolition of the han in 1871, Shinano was divided between Nagano Prefecture in the north and Chikuma Prefecture, based in Matsumoto, in the south. When Chikuma was abolished in 1876 its Shinano districts were merged into Nagano, and the prefectural office remained in Nagano City, a decision that long fuelled rivalry between the north and Matsumoto.

The Northern Alps along the borders with Toyama and Gifu include Yari-ga-take (3,180 m) and Okuhotaka-dake (3,190 m), the highest point in the prefecture, above the valley of Kamikōchi. The Central Alps rise between the Kiso and Ina valleys to Kiso-Komagatake, and the Southern Alps separate the Ina valley from Yamanashi and Shizuoka. Active volcanoes include Asama on the Gunma border and Ontake on the Gifu border.

The Chikuma River, which becomes the Shinano in Niigata, drains the north and east; the Tenryū flows south from Lake Suwa to the Pacific; and the Kiso River runs south-west through its valley towards Nagoya. Lake Suwa lies near the centre of the prefecture on the Itoigawa-Shizuoka Tectonic Line. The northern highlands of Shiga Kōgen and the Myōkō-Togakushi mountains are among the snowiest areas of central Japan.

Nagano has an inland highland climate: dry, with low humidity, large differences between day and night, cool summers and cold winters. The north around Iiyama, Nozawa and Hakuba receives heavy Sea of Japan-type snow, while the central and southern basins are cold but relatively dry. Summer highlands such as Karuizawa and Kirigamine have long served as retreats from the heat of the cities.

Shinano was one of the great centres of Jōmon culture; clay figures from Chino, including the Jōmon Venus, are National Treasures. The Suwa shrines, among the oldest in Japan, and Zenkō-ji, traditionally founded in the seventh century, made the province a religious centre. In the sixteenth century Takeda Shingen and Uesugi Kenshin fought five battles at Kawanakajima near Nagano for control of northern Shinano.

Under the Tokugawa, Shinano was divided among many small domains such as Matsumoto, Matsushiro, Ueda and Takatō, and the Nakasendō and Hokkoku Kaidō roads carried travellers through it. In the Meiji era the Suwa and Okaya area became the centre of Japan's silk-reeling industry, which supplied much of the world's raw silk. After the Second World War, precision industries grew in its place.

The 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano brought the Nagano Shinkansen and new expressways. The prefecture has also known disaster: the eruption of Mount Ontake in 2014 killed dozens of hikers, and Typhoon Hagibis flooded the Chikuma River valley in 2019.

Nagano's culture is that of mountain communities on busy highways. Religious life centres on Zenkō-ji, which accepts believers of all Buddhist schools, and on the Suwa Taisha shrines, whose Onbashira festival is one of Japan's most spectacular. Stone dōsojin, roadside guardian deities often carved as couples, stand at village boundaries across the prefecture.

The prefecture prides itself on education and self-reliance; it has one of the largest numbers of museums of any prefecture, and its anthem, Shinano no Kuni, is sung at schools and gatherings throughout Nagano. Distinctive food customs include eating insects such as grasshoppers and wasp larvae in the Ina valley.

Cool summers and poor soils made buckwheat, wheat and preserved foods the basis of Shinshū cooking. Shinshū soba and oyaki dumplings are its best-known dishes, and Shinshū miso accounts for a large share of all miso made in Japan. Orchards produce apples, grapes and chestnuts, highland farms grow lettuce and other summer vegetables, and Azumino's spring water supports wasabi farms.

Nagano's industry grew out of silk. When the silk trade collapsed, the Suwa area turned to precision manufacturing, watches, cameras, optics and later printers and electronic components, earning it the nickname "the Switzerland of the Orient". Food processing, including miso, agar and freeze-dried tofu, is also important.

Agriculture is highly specialised: Nagano is a leading producer of apples, grapes, lettuce, celery, cultivated mushrooms and wasabi. Tourism is a major employer, from ski resorts and hot springs to mountain huts in the Alps and summer resorts such as Karuizawa.