Yuzawa Town

A fort built in haste, on a pass ridge.

Arato Castle Site, mountain fort

Photo by 兵どもが夢の跡山さん (CC BY-SA 4.0)

01 ／ Wakihonjin site

Senior retainers and the Sado magistratestayed at this inn, with its upper room and plaques.

The Ikeda house at Mitsumata is a wakihonjin, a secondary inn for daimyo and other high-ranking travelers, and it also served as a wholesale and forwarding agent. The town writes that, of the three Mikuni Road post towns of Asagai, Futai and Mitsumata, this is now the only Edo-period building left along the road. It has ink-painted sliding doors and openwork transoms.

Prefectural historic site, 1954
Mitsumata, one of three Mikuni Road post towns
Upper room and lodging plaques

02 ／ Ishijiro coins

271,784 old coins,and no one knows who buried them or why.

In 1971, during road construction at Ishijiro, old coins in a wooden box were found about 1 m underground, and more turned up about 5 m away in 1974. In all there were 271,784 coins of 82 kinds, from the Tang dynasty's Kaiyuan Tongbao to Korea's Joseon Tongbo. The town's materials say it is still not known who collected them or why they were buried.

Found in 1971 and 1974
271,784 coins, 82 kinds
Found in wooden boxes

03 ／ Suwa Shrine cedar

A sacred cedar said to be 400 years old,35.83 m tall.

The great cedar in the grounds of Suwa Shrine in Yuzawa has been a town-designated natural monument since 1988. Niigata Prefecture's list of cultural properties gives a trunk girth of 7.31 m and a height of 35.83 m, and the town's materials call it a sacred tree said to be 400 years old.

Town natural monument, 1988
Girth 7.31 m
Height 35.83 m

Living here

As little as 66 minutes to Tokyo by Shinkansen.

about 8,000 people
90 min to a city centre
Shinkansen stops here
Rural district town

Echigo-Yuzawa Station is on the Joetsu Shinkansen, as little as 66 minutes from Tokyo Station. Yuzawa was formed in 1955 by the merger of five villages, Yuzawa, Kandatsu, Tsuchitaru, Mitsumata and Mikuni, and more than 90% of its area is mountainous. The town also has the Kawakubo site, a Jomon-period settlement, the Futai honjin of the Tomizawa family, a town-designated historic site, and Daigenta River Check Dam No. 1, a nationally registered tangible cultural property. The town's gateway is Echigo-Yuzawa Station.

People living here: 7,767people
Area: 357.29km²
Households: 3,583households
Rent (average for rentals): —
Healthcare: 1 hospital ／ 3 clinics

Area and habitable land at the same scalee-Stat B1101 / B1103

Children waiting for childcare: —1 nurseries and similar
Home purchase subsidy: —
Average annual temperature: —

These 3 items are waiting on a nationwide data source. We do not fill them with estimates.

ACCESS

Where you can go from here.

Yuzawa Town in Japan36.934°N 138.817°E

to TokyoJoetsu Shinkansen66min

Travel times follow JR東日本の時刻表（2610版・列車別の『上越・北陸新幹線下り／上り』平日・土曜休日。最終更新 2026-09-14）。東京発の『とき』のうち、運転日が『全日』の列だけで、東京駅の発から越後湯沢駅の着までを数えた (checked 2026-10-14). They vary by time of day.

Shape

Borders 6 municipalities across 2 prefectures.

Territory of Yuzawa Town

Boundaries: National Land Numerical Information (N03)Lakes: National Land Numerical Information (Lake Data), MLIT. Processed by Machigatari. Prepared with the approval of the Director-General of the Geospatial Information Authority of Japan, using its Digital Map 25000 (Spatial Data Framework) and Digital Map 25000 (Place Names and Public Facilities). (承認番号平27情使、第585号)

North to south

25.3km

Niigata Prefecture: 南魚沼市, 十日町市, 津南町
Gunma Prefecture: みなかみ町, 中之条町
Nagano Prefecture: 栄村

Yuzawa Town isthis kind of town.

01Arato Castle Site is a prefecturally designated mountain fort, built in haste to defend Echigo, on a ridge by the pass; within a regular triangle about 100 m on a side it holds the main bailey and the second and third baileys
02The Ikeda wakihonjin site at Mitsumata is a prefectural historic site where senior retainers and the Sado magistrate stayed in the Edo period, and the town writes that it is the only Edo-period building left on the Mikuni Road's three post towns
03At Ishijiro, 271,784 old coins of 82 kinds were unearthed in 1971 and 1974 and the town's materials say it is not known who buried them or why, and Suwa Shrine has a great cedar with a trunk girth of 7.31 m

If something caught your eye, ask the town itself.

Yuzawa Town official site ↗Wikipedia ↗