• Japan Guide

  • Introduction to Japan
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• Explore Japan

  • Tokyo
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  • Northern Honshū
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• Cities

  • Aizu-Wakamatsu
    
  • Akita
    
  • Aomori
    
  • Fukuoka
    
  • Hakodate
    
  • Hirosaki
    
  • Hiroshima
    
  • Kōbe
    
  • Kagoshima
    
  • Kakunodate
    
  • Kanazawa
    
  • Kumamoto
    
  • Kyoto
    
  • Matsue
    
  • Matsumoto
    
  • Matsuyama
    
  • Miyazaki
    
  • Nagano
    
  • Nagasaki
    
  • Nagoya
    
  • Naha
    
  • Nara
    
  • Narita
    
  • Niigata
    
  • Okayama
    
  • Ōsaka
    
  • Sapporo
    
  • Sendai
    
  • Shimonoseki
    
  • Takamatsu
    
  • Tokushima
    
  • Tokyo
    
  • Yamagata
    
  • Yamaguchi
    
  • Yokohama
    

Japan Guide

Northern Honshū

Kakunodate

• Accommodation
• Eating

While Akita City has lost nearly all of its historical relics, nearby KAKUNODATE still has the air of a feudal town, with its strictly delineated samurai and merchants' quarters. Kakunodate was established as a military outpost in 1620 by the lords of Akita, with a castle on a hill to the north, a samurai town of around eighty residences, and 350 merchants' homes in a cramped district to the south. This basic layout and a handful of the samurai houses have survived the years, as have several hundred of the weeping cherry trees brought from Kyoto three centuries ago.