10 Best Japan Snow Festivals in 2025
Japan is magical in winter with its powdery snow, making it a wonderful destination to experience a wide range of snow festivals. Whether in Hokkaido or Honshu, the island hosts so many fascinating winter festivals to fulfill your winter Japan tour. If you find yourself torn between them, we've picked out the 10 best snow festivals in Japan. From the Sapporo Snow Festival to the Lake Shikotsu Ice Museum, make a favorite out of these snow events.
Sapporo Snow Festival
- Date: February 4 to 11, 2025
- Location: Odori Park, Tsudome and Susukino venues in Sapporo, Hokkaido
Don't miss the chance to experience the Sapporo Snow Festival, an enormous snow festival recognized worldwide. This fantastic event promises an endless variety of thrilling pleasures in a wonderland of snow and ice.
The highlight of the festival is the artwork delicately shaved from different sizes of ice blocks. There are over 250 ice sculptures in all sizes and shapes. You can expect to find surprising depictions of such creations, from popular cartoon and movie characters to vivid animals and worldwide landmarks like the White House and the Eiffel Tower.
The interesting snow and ice competition is worth attending for adults. Children can partake in curling, snow slides, and mazes designed especially for them. Each part of the festival has great charm.
Asahikawa Winter Festival
- Date: February 6 to 11, 2025
- Location: Asahikawa, Hokkaido
As the second-largest winter festival in Hokkaido, the Asahikawa Winter Festival has ornate ice sculptures and a massive ice stage.
You can see a wide range of snow sculptures at the site. They include world-famous characters in national anime like Totoro, Doraemon, Pikachu, and Astro Boy. In the Heiwa Dori area, there is an exhibit of almost-transparent ice sculptures shaped like elegant horses, cranes, and other animal images.
The ice and snow sculptures are illuminated at night. Every year a huge ice structure in the form of a fortress is built as a stage for live music and fireworks performances. Besides sculpture viewing, you can experience amazing winter activities such as snowman-making, ice sliding, and snowmobile riding.
Snow Festival with Fireworks Display
Chitose and Lake Shikotsu Ice Festival
- Date: February 1 to 24, 2025
- Location: Lake Shikotsu in Sapporo, Hokkaido
The almost month-long Chitose and Lake Shikotsu Ice Festival is one of the most anticipated snow celebrations in Hokkaido. You're treated to multiple forms of fascination in this corner of Japan.
Located around Shikotsu Lake, these ice sculptures have different faces during the day and at night. During the day, the highly transparent ice sculptures are a romantic shade of blue. At night, they are illuminated with colorful lights, some colossal ice sculptures, and a small exhibition of exquisite photographs inside.
Fun activities include ice skating, ice slides, and horse rides. The tamed horse will take you around the ice town, taking in the snow-covered trees and houses along the way. On weekends and public holidays, you can see a spectacular display of around 300 fireworks, accompanied by wadaiko drumming. Food booths on the spot are worthwhile to explore, providing oden, udon noodles, hot soba, and other Japanese delicacies.
Sounkyo Onsen Hyobaku Festival
- Date: January 25 to March 9, 2025
- Location: Kamikawa, Hokkaido
The Sounkyo Onsen Hyobaku Festival, also known as the Sounkyo Onsen Ice Fall Festival, has been a big attraction in Kamikawa-cho, Hokkaido. The festival is famous for its imposing ice waterfall, formed in subzero temperatures in the harsh winter.
The whole festival features a row of 30 ice sculptures covering around 10,000 square meters, an imposing icefall shrine, a multi-story ice structure with a maze inside, and a 13-meter observation deck. The ice sculptures are illuminated with seven different colors of light, which is a fantastic spectacle to appreciate. What you can experience at the festival includes ice climbing, ice sliding, snow tubing, projection mapping on the ice, and more. The stunning stage performances and fireworks alike add to a festive atmosphere.
Frozen Waterfall
Zao Snow Monster Festival
- Date: December 27, 2024 to February 24, 2025
- Location: Zao Ski Resort, Yamagata
Also named Zao Juhyo Matsuri in Japanese, it is a great marvel that is mastered by nature. The freezing winter weather shapes a large area of forests on Mount Zao into wonderful sculptures that look like giant elephants or dinosaurs and towering pagodas. These nature-made masterpieces are seen as snow monsters, or "juhyo" in Japanese.
The Zao ropeway ride allows you to have the best view of such magic and amazement in the daytime, giving you the visual scenery of a silvery-white forest just a few meters below the ropeway or a spectacular panorama. At night, the frosted trees at Jizo Sancho station and the Zao cable car are lit up, giving you a chance to see the fabulous colors of these snow sculptures. You'll also be treated to wonderful fireworks from the slopes. Besides snow monster viewing, you can enjoy skiing or snowboarding at the ski resort if you like.
Iwate Snow Festival
- Date: January 25 to February 16, 2025
- Location: Shizukuishi, Iwate
Also known as Shizukuishi Winter Festival, deserving to be one of the five "Great Snow Festivals in the Tohoku Region", there is no reason to miss this fabulous snow festival if you are heading to northern Honshu during your winter holiday in Japan.
The Iwate Snow Festival has everything to offer, which gives you multiple enjoyment in Japan's winter. The bustling event features many highlights: small or giant snow sculpture making, night illumination, fireworks displays, dancing and singing shows, and so on.
One of the most fascinating parts is seeing 16 giant decorated ice sculptures about six meters high illuminated by colorful lights at night. There are over 70 kamakura igloo houses and some huge stores built as snow toboggans for the dish "Genghis Khan", a kind of stewed mutton.
Hirosaki Castle Snow Lantern Festival
- Date: February 7 to 11, 2025
- Location: Hirosaki Park, Aomori
The image of Hirosaki Castle changes beautifully with the seasons. Once you've been captivated by it in spring or autumn, you probably won't want to miss its special charm in winter.
Started in 1977, the Snow Lantern Festival at Hirosaki Castle in Aomori Prefecture is a great celebration. About 150 snow lanterns impressively illuminate the main keep of the snow-covered castle, with an icon of a Nebuta warrior and about 300 miniature snow huts lit by candles. This is an iconic sight at the festival.
Outside the castle, there is a giant statue in the shape of a Western-style cloister with a projection mapping exhibit on it. Large and medium-sized slides to entertain the participants. For family fun, you and your children can take part in launching LED-powered sky lanterns and enjoy a charming view of the lantern-dotted night sky.
Winter Castle
Aizu Erosoku Matsuri
- Date: February 7 to 8, 2025
- Location: Aizuwakamatsu, Fukushima
Aizu Erosoku Matsuri, widely known as the Aizu Painted Candle Festival, is a traditional festival with painted candles, a long tradition perpetuated for six centuries as a significant way for local families to pay respects to their ancestors.
These hand-painted candles, about 10,000 in number, are decorated with images of the city's iconic flowers, such as chrysanthemums, wisteria, and peonies. You can also craft a candle container with snow in any shape you like.
The well-designed candles, protected by custom-made bamboo tubes, are scattered throughout the snow-covered grounds of Oyakuen Garden and Tsuruga Castle, illuminating the surrounding buildings and creating the stunning effect of thousands of bright blossoms sprouting from the snow.
Snow Festival with Painted Candles
Yokote Kamakura Snow Festival
- Date: February 15 to 16, 2025
- Location: Yokote, Akita
Yokote Kamakura Snow Festival deserves absolute approval to be included in a list of the best festivals in Tohoku, northeastern Japan. With a history of over 450 years, the traditional festival brings the winter wonderland seductive colors and magic joys.
It is a 2-day celebration annually held in the city of Yokote, in the southeast corner of Akita Prefecture. It can be surprisingly seen that hundreds of miniature Kamakura, igloo-shaped snow houses, are lit up with candles on the ground and the Yokote River. The most visited highlights include a fairy-tale view of the illuminated Yokote Castle at night.
You can see a blanket of orderly arranged tiny Kamakura revolving around the castle with the silvery sparkle. You're able to inhabit one of the large snow huts with your children or share with locals, sampling tasty grilled rice cakes (mochi) and warm rice sake (amazake) together.
Tadami Snow Festival
- Date: February 8 to 9, 2025
- Location: Tadami, Fukushima
The Tadami Snow Festival is another big snow celebration hosted in Fukushima every year. The mountainous geography blesses Tadami with an abundance of snow, which contributes to local large-scale snow statues and sculptures.
The focus of the celebration is a lot of vivid sculptures created by skilled local rivals in the 20 days before the ice competition. If you visit early, you have the chance to see how sculptors craft their intricate masterpieces in the open air. These ice masterpieces, big and small, are in various shapes, from the magnificent castle to historical monuments to animals like dinosaurs and eagles.
As the night closes in, the main sculptures are dramatically lit up with brilliant lights and the magnificent launching of fireworks, creating a gorgeous sight. There is also a fire-cleansing ritual in prayer for good health and fortune. You can enjoy traditional and musical performances, as well as food tastings, during the festival.
Enjoy the Snow Festival With Odynovo
No words could describe the fantasy and amazement of these dramatic winter festivals. Only when you have firsthand experience does real enjoyment have lasting value. Any time is tremendous for your preparation before Japan's winter. Or, it's great for you to travel with Odynovo. We help you organize an individual itinerary according to your requirements and preferences.
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