Current Time in Akita, Japan

Akita lies on the Sea of Japan coast in the northern part of Honshu, the main Japanese island, in the Tohoku region. It is the capital of Akita Prefecture and sits on a plain crossed by the Omono River, with wooded hills inland and a long sandy shoreline to the west. The city is known for its snow, since cold air crossing the sea from the Asian continent brings some of the heaviest winter falls of any regional capital in Japan, while summers are warm and green.

Around three hundred thousand people live here. Akita serves as the administrative, commercial and educational centre of a prefecture famous for rice, sake and forestry. Its port handles regional trade, and it has one of the country's few domestic oil and gas fields, along with electronics and paper industries, though agriculture defines the region's identity above all.

The area was a frontier in ancient times, where the Yamato state built the fortified outpost of Akita Castle in the eighth century to secure its northern boundary. In the Edo period the Satake clan ruled the domain from Kubota Castle, and the town prospered on rice, timber and the silver mines of the interior. Modernisation brought a port, a railway and prefectural government, and although the city was bombed at the very end of the Second World War, much of the historic street pattern survives. In recent decades Akita, like much of rural Japan, has grappled with an ageing and declining population, and it has responded with striking initiatives in education and tourism.

Senshu Park, laid out on the site of Kubota Castle, is the heart of the city, with reconstructed gates and a watchtower, cherry blossom in spring and lotus ponds in summer. The Akita Museum of Art, designed by Tadao Ando, displays an enormous mural by Fujita Tsuguharu depicting local festivals and daily life, one of the largest paintings in Japan. The Akarenga brick museum, the old merchant houses and the riverside walks add further interest.

The city's greatest moment is the Kanto Festival in early August, one of the three great festivals of Tohoku, when performers balance bamboo poles hung with dozens of paper lanterns on their palms, foreheads and hips, swaying through the streets to drums and flutes in a display of astonishing skill. The Akita dog, a thick-coated breed known worldwide through the story of the loyal Hachiko, originates in this prefecture, and visitors can meet one at a small exhibition near the station. Local specialities include kiritanpo, pounded rice grilled on cedar skewers and simmered in chicken hotpot, along with some of the finest sake in Japan.

The Akita Shinkansen connects the city directly to Tokyo, and an airport, ferries and expressways provide further links. Akita University and Akita International University, the latter noted for teaching entirely in English and attracting students from around the world, give the city an unexpectedly international character.

Akita offers festivals, snow country scenery, superb food and warm northern hospitality.