There are many

festivals A festival is an event ordinarily celebrated by a community and centering on some characteristic aspect or aspects of that community and its religion or cultures. It is often marked as a local or national holiday, mela, or eid. A festival co ...

held in the city of Nagoya in central Japan. These festivals (''matsuri'') take place throughout the year. Apart from the main national festivals and holidays, which are celebrated across the entire country, Nagoya has its own unique festivals. Major events include the Atsuta Festival at Atsuta Shrine in June, the Port Festival at

Nagoya Port The , located in Ise Bay, is the largest and busiest trading port in Japan, accounting for about 10% of the total trade value of Japan. Notably, this port is the largest exporter of cars in Japan and where the Toyota Motor Corporation exports most ...

in July, the Nagoya Castle Summer Festival in August, and the Nagoya Festival at the Hisaya Ōdori Park in October. Various smaller festivals exist, and different wards and areas of the city have their own local festivals.

Events and festivals

January

* is a Japanese holiday held annually on the second Monday of January. It is held in order to congratulate and encourage all those who have reached the

age of majority The age of majority is the threshold of legal adulthood as recognized or declared in law. It is the moment when minors cease to be considered such and assume legal control over their persons, actions, and decisions, thus terminating the contro ...

——over the past year, and to help them realize that they have become

adult An adult is a human or other animal that has reached full growth. In human context, the term ''adult'' has meanings associated with social and legal concepts. In contrast to a " minor", a legal adult is a person who has attained the age of major ...

s. Festivities include held at local halls and the

Nagoya City Hall is the city hall of the city of Nagoya, Japan. It is designed in the Imperial Crown style, a fusion Japanese and modern style. It survived the bombings of World War II and is registered as a Tangible Cultural Property of Japan. It is located ...

or the

Aichi Prefectural Government Office The Aichi Prefectural Government Office (愛知県庁 Aichi Kenchō) is the main building of the government of Aichi Prefecture. It is located in the city of Nagoya. History The building was constructed before the Second World War and is in the ...

, as well as after-parties amongst family and friends.

March

* , or Girls' Day, is held on March 3. Platforms covered with red carpet are used to display a set of representing the

Emperor An emperor (from la, imperator, via fro, empereor) is a monarch, and usually the sovereign ruler of an empire or another type of imperial realm. Empress, the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife ( empress consort), mother (emp ...

, Empress, attendants, and musicians in traditional court dress of the

Heian period The is the last division of classical Japanese history, running from 794 to 1185. It followed the Nara period, beginning when the 50th emperor, Emperor Kanmu, moved the capital of Japan to Heian-kyō (modern Kyoto). means "peace" in Japane ...

. Doll makers from Nagoya continue to be one of the most outstanding ones in Japan. Hōnen Matsuri 2

* is a fertility festival celebrated every year on March 15 at Tagata Shrine in Komaki, just north of Nagoya. ''Hōnen'' means "prosperous year" in Japanese, implying a rich harvest, while a ''

matsuri Japanese festivals are traditional festive occasions often celebrated with dance and music in Japan. Many festivals have their roots in traditional Chinese festivals, but have undergone extensive changes over time to have little resemblance ...

'' is a festival. The Hōnen festival and ceremony celebrate the blessings of a bountiful harvest and all manner of prosperity and fertility. The festival's main features are Shinto priests playing musical instruments, a parade of ceremonially garbed participants, all-you-can-drink ''sake'' (wine), and a 280 kg (620 lb), 2.5 meter (96")-long wooden phallus.

April

* is the traditional custom of enjoying the beauty of flowers, "flower" in this case almost always meaning

cherry blossom A cherry blossom, also known as Japanese cherry or sakura, is a flower of many trees of genus ''Prunus'' or ''Prunus'' subg. ''Cerasus''. They are common species in East Asia, including China, Korea and especially in Japan. They generally ...

s or ume blossoms. Sakura season in Nagoya tends to be from March to April. ''Hanami'' mostly consists of having an outdoor party beneath the sakura during daytime or at night in places such as Meijō Park, Nagoya Agricultural Center, and Nagoya Castle.

May

* The

Nagoya Walkathon The Chubu Walkathon and International Charity Festival is a foreign organized charity event started in 1991 in Nagoya, Japan by members of the now defunct American Business Community Nagoya (ABCN); in November 2000 the ABCN merged with and became t ...

and International Charity Festival is a foreign-organized

charity Charity may refer to: Giving * Charitable organization or charity, a non-profit organization whose primary objectives are philanthropy and social well-being of persons * Charity (practice), the practice of being benevolent, giving and sharing * C ...

event that started in 1991 and is held every May. The event is sponsored by the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan (ACCJ) and Nagoya International School (NIS), and its main purpose is to join the international community with Japanese friends and companies in raising money for local orphanages and charities.

June

* The Atsuta Festival is held on June 5 at the Atsuta Shrine. This is the biggest festival of the 70 festivals held at the shrine, and one of the calendar's most auspicious events. In the shrine's main sanctuary, religious rites are performed by the high priests while, within the greater compound, portable shrines (''

mikoshi A is a sacred religious palanquin (also translated as portable Shinto shrine). Shinto followers believe that it serves as the vehicle to transport a deity in Japan while moving between main shrine and temporary shrine during a festival or when ...

'') are carried, a martial arts contest is conducted, and performances by street entertainers are held. In the evening, vendors with paper lanterns on their wagons line the streets, and fireworks are set off in the sky.

July

* is the

star A star is an astronomical object comprising a luminous spheroid of plasma held together by its gravity. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Many other stars are visible to the naked eye at night, but their immense distances from Earth ma ...

festival, originating from the Chinese Qixi Festival. It celebrates the meeting of Orihime ( Vega) and Hikoboshi (

Altair Altair is the brightest star in the constellation of Aquila and the twelfth-brightest star in the night sky. It has the Bayer designation Alpha Aquilae, which is Latinised from α Aquilae and abbreviated Alpha Aql or ...

). According to legend, the Milky Way is a river of stars that crosses the sky, separating these lovers, and they are allowed to meet only once a year on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month of the lunisolar calendar. The celebration is held at night. * The Minato (Port) Festival is held at

around , known as ' Ocean Day' or '

Sea The sea, connected as the world ocean or simply the ocean, is the body of salty water that covers approximately 71% of the Earth's surface. The word sea is also used to denote second-order sections of the sea, such as the Mediterranean Sea, ...

Day,' celebrated on the third Monday each July. Many people take advantage of the holiday and summer weather to travel to a beach. The highlight of this annual festival is the raftsmen's water logging contest. Since the Edo period, the port has been the distribution centre for logs that were cut in the mountains and floated by raftsmen down the Hori River to port. Other attractions include a massive street dance with over 1,500 performers, a marching band, and large amounts of fireworks. * The Nagoya Basho Sumo Tournament is the annual mid-July sumo wrestling tournament, held everyday from the second to the fourth Sunday at the

Aichi Prefectural Gymnasium , also known as , is a multi-purpose gymnasium in Nagoya, Japan, built in 1964. Overview Located on the site of the secondary enclosure of Nagoya Castle, it is host to numerous concerts and events. The gymnasium has 4,375 fixed seats, and can ...

in the Ninomaru enceinte of Nagoya Castle.

August

* The Nagoya Castle Summer Festival is held early in August at Nagoya Castle. The festival starts after sunset, when the temperatures become cooler and more bearable for visitors. Vendors line the streets to watch the

Bon Festival or just is fusion of the ancient Japanese belief in ancestral spirits and a Japanese Buddhist custom to honor the spirits of one's ancestors. This Buddhist– Confucian custom has evolved into a family reunion holiday during which people ret ...

dance, listen to live music, watch

Noh is a major form of classical Japanese dance-drama that has been performed since the 14th century. Developed by Kan'ami and his son Zeami, it is the oldest major theatre art that is still regularly performed today. Although the terms Noh and ...

plays, and watch

bonfire A bonfire is a large and controlled outdoor fire, used either for informal disposal of burnable waste material or as part of a celebration. Etymology The earliest recorded uses of the word date back to the late 15th century, with the Catho ...

s being lit.

September

* Chrysanthemum Day on September 9 is a celebration of the

chrysanthemum Chrysanthemums (), sometimes called mums or chrysanths, are flowering plants of the genus ''Chrysanthemum'' in the family Asteraceae. They are native to East Asia and northeastern Europe. Most species originate from East Asia and the center o ...

, Japan's national flower. The tradition started in 910 CE, when the imperial court held its first chrysanthemum show. Various flower shows are held and popular historical scenes are depicted by clay dolls dressed in robes made from chrysanthemum petals.

October

* is held in mid-October in the central

Hisaya Ōdori Park The Hisaya-ōdōri Park (久屋大通公園) is located in Sakae, Nagoya, in central Japan. History The park was laid out after the devastation of World War II by the mayor of Nagoya, in order to create green space in the middle of the city. ...

in Sakae. The highlight of the festival is the procession of the Three Heroes of Nagoya: Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and

Tokugawa Ieyasu was the founder and first ''shōgun'' of the Tokugawa Shogunate of Japan, which ruled Japan from 1603 until the Meiji Restoration in 1868. He was one of the three "Great Unifiers" of Japan, along with his former lord Oda Nobunaga and fellow ...

. The characters come along with their soldiers clad in armour and carrying weapons and banners. The parade normally has over 700 people, stretching over 1.5 km in length, and is accompanied by a band. * is held every year in October in the fashionable neighbourhood of

Ōsu is a popular area located in the Naka ward of Nagoya, central Japan. Ōsu is a historic area which has many small shops offering everything from Japanese traditional food to handicrafts. A large department store is OSU301. It is popular a ...

. Nagoyamatsuri3.JPG, karakuri float File:Nagoyamatsuri4.JPG, Band Parade File:Nagoyamatsuri5.JPG, Flower Car Parade File:Nagoyamatsuri6.JPG, Oda Nobunaga（Procession of the Three Feudal Lords） File:Nagoyamatsuri7.JPG, Toyotomi Hideyoshi File:Nagoyamatsuri8.JPG, Tokugawa Ieyasu File:Nagoya TV Tower1.jpg,

File:Osu-2008 Oiran-dochu-02.jpg, ''Daidō-chōnin Matsuri'' in

November

* is a traditional

rite of passage A rite of passage is a ceremony or ritual of the passage which occurs when an individual leaves one group to enter another. It involves a significant change of status in society. In cultural anthropology the term is the Anglicisation of ''rite ...

and festival day for three- and seven-year-old girls and three- and five-year-old boys, held annually on November 15. As ''Shichi-Go-San'' is not a national holiday, in practice it is generally observed on the nearest weekend. The children are brought to their local shrines for blessings.

December

* , or

New Year's Eve In the Gregorian calendar, New Year's Eve, also known as Old Year's Day or Saint Sylvester's Day in many countries, is the evening or the entire day of the December 31, last day of the year, on 31 December. The last day of the year is commonly ...

, is the second-most important day in the

Japanese calendar Japanese calendar types have included a range of official and unofficial systems. At present, Japan uses the Gregorian calendar together with year designations stating the year of the reign of the current Emperor. The written form starts with t ...

—it is the final day of the old year and the eve of New Year's Day, which is the most important day of the year. It is considered an important time for locals, who put great emphasis in shaking off the old evils and ushering in the new. Around 11:00 PM on Ōmisoka, people often gather at home for one last time in the old year to have a bowl of ''

toshikoshi soba is a traditional Japanese noodle bowl dish eaten on ōmisoka (New Year's Eve, 31 December).Bill Daley"New Year's Eve noodles: A savory end to the old year" Chicago Tribune This custom lets go of hardship of the year because soba noodles are eas ...

'' () or ''toshikoshi-

udon Udon ( or ) is a thick noodle made from wheat flour, used in Japanese cuisine. It is a comfort food for many Japanese people. There are a variety of ways it is prepared and served. Its simplest form is in a hot soup as with a mild broth called ...

'' () together—a tradition based on people's association of eating the long noodles with “crossing over from one year to the next,” which is the meaning of ''toshi-koshi''.

References

External links

{{commonscat-inline, Festivals of Nagoya Culture in Nagoya Festivals in Aichi Prefecture Tourist attractions in Nagoya Nagoya