Anan（阿南）: A (阿）derives from Achi river（阿智川）and Nan（南）means south. Thus Anan originally signifies the southern part of Achi river and the Anan indicated a vast area including Shimojo, Urugi and Yasuoka. However, this area was gradually divided into several local governments and finally the place where many public facilities with the name of Anan adopted its name for their town name. It’s the birth story of Anan town.
Incidentally, Achi river was widely used to transport timbers during the Edo period (17-19th century).
You can find several ancient festivals in Anan. Among them, the most impressive is the Snow festival in Niino. Since snow was considered as an auspicious sign of good harvest in this district, people have called this festival as Snow festival and held it with the sacred prayer.
Starting from the middle of the 13th century, it is one of the important origins of traditional performing arts such as Noh and Kyogen and provides profound insights for those who study ancient performing arts. Combining Shinto and Buddhist traditions, a group of performing artists have preserved this ancient festival for hundreds of years. It’s a picture scroll of Japanese performing arts throughout the night, including Kagura, Dengaku, Bugaku, Kagura and Sarugaku which are generally performed separately.
Pottery making (Anan-yaki)
The northern part of Anan town called Tomikusa used to be seabed several thousand years ago. Therefore, many f […]
Soba and Gohei Mochi Lunch
SobaSoba, which is Japanese traditional noodles made from buckwheat flour, is a representative local dish of N […]
