Current Time in Aomori, Japan

Aomori sits at the northern tip of Honshu, the main island of Japan, on the shore of Mutsu Bay and facing the strait that separates it from Hokkaido. The Hakkoda mountains rise immediately to the south, and the city occupies the flat land between them and the sea. Its winters are legendary, for cold air crossing the Sea of Japan dumps enormous quantities of snow here, making Aomori one of the snowiest cities of its size anywhere in the world, with drifts that bury cars and roofs. Summers, by contrast, are pleasantly cool and green.

Around two hundred and seventy thousand people live in the city, which is the capital of Aomori Prefecture. Its economy rests on the port, fishing, food processing, government and agriculture, and the prefecture is famous throughout Japan as the source of the great majority of the country's apples, whose orchards turn the countryside white with blossom each May.

The name means blue forest, and the town began in the seventeenth century as a port built by the local domain to ship rice and timber toward Edo. It grew into the main gateway to Hokkaido, and for decades the ferry crossing from here was the only practical link between the two islands. That role ended when the Seikan Tunnel, for many years the longest undersea tunnel in the world, opened beneath the strait in 1988. The city was heavily bombed in 1945 and rebuilt afterwards, which gives the centre a modern appearance dominated by the triangular Aspam building and the graceful arc of the bay bridge.

Aomori is defined for most Japanese by its summer festival. Over six nights in early August, the Nebuta Matsuri fills the streets with vast illuminated floats depicting warriors, demons and gods, built on wire frames and painted paper, pushed along by teams while thousands of costumed dancers leap alongside to flutes and drums. It is one of the great festivals of Japan, and a museum beside the harbour displays prize winning floats and explains their construction all year round.

The city also holds one of the most important archaeological sites in East Asia. Sannai Maruyama preserves a large Jomon period settlement occupied for well over a thousand years, with reconstructed pit dwellings and a towering timber structure, and it forms part of a group of prehistoric sites inscribed on the World Heritage list in 2021. The Aomori Museum of Art nearby is a striking white building housing works by artists connected to the prefecture, including an enormous outdoor sculpture of a dog that has become a local emblem.

Beyond the city lie the Hakkoda mountains, famous for hot springs, deep powder snow and the frost covered trees known as snow monsters, along with Lake Towada and the beautiful Oirase stream. The seafood is superb, particularly scallops, squid and tuna.

Shinkansen trains reach Tokyo in around three hours, and an airport and ferries serve the region.

Aomori is memorable for its festival, its snow, its apples and its deep prehistoric past.