Kawanabe Futsukaichi: A 230-Year-Old Winter Market Fair

On a Saturday and Sunday each February, the town of Kawanabe in Minamikyushu City, Kagoshima Prefecture, holds a market that has been running for over 230 years. Kawanabe Futsukaichi is counted among the three great markets of the prefecture. The venue is the Kawanabe Kaiun Yume-dori shopping street, an ordinary road for most of the year, which for two days becomes a pedestrian zone 1.3 kilometres long lined with roughly 400 stalls and visited by about 150,000 people. In a month when the air is still sharp, this market has long announced that spring is on its way.

Four Hundred Stalls Along 1.3 Kilometres

Standing at the entrance to the shopping street, you cannot see the far end for stalls: nursery plants and saplings, farm tools, hardware, dried goods, clothing and food. Beside a stand piled with local vegetables sits a stall griddling sweet bean cakes, and steam and charcoal smoke mix into the cold air.

Because the street is closed to cars, you walk down the middle of the road. Getting from one end to the other takes time, particularly because the correct way to shop here is to stop, ask a price, negotiate a little, and end up talking about something else entirely. At the banana auction stall, a speciality of the market, the seller patter draws a tight crowd.

Buddhist Altars and Street Performers

Kawanabe is known for Buddhist altar craftsmanship, and the market includes an exhibition and sale of Kawanabe butsudan, a recognised traditional craft. That hall, filled with lacquer and gold leaf work, is quiet in a way the street outside is not.

Other programmes run across the two days, including a rice cake pounding event and a chindon procession, a troupe of costumed musicians who walk the street playing gongs and drums. Plenty of visitors come for the events rather than the shopping.

A Market Older Than the Modern City

According to Minamikyushu City, the market began in the Edo period when farmers, during the agricultural off season, brought straw work and bamboo goods they had made themselves and sold them. It was a modest gathering at first, but merchants from the surrounding market towns joined in and it grew into a major fair. The name Futsukaichi, meaning two day market, comes from its Edo period run of two days in the twelfth month. The timing later moved to early February, where it remains.

Tips for Visiting

The market opens at 8:00, and mornings are when stock is fullest. Come early to avoid the thickest crowds, or around midday for the full noise. Walking the 1.3 kilometre street and back adds up, so comfortable shoes matter, and February here is cold even at midday.

If shopping is your aim, carry a large bag, which you will be grateful for after buying saplings or dried goods. Parking is provided around the venue, but parking on the street is prohibited. The same city holds the samurai residences and Peace Museum at Chiran, and Kamafuta Shrine, known for prayers about competition and challenge, both easy to combine with a morning at the market.

Getting There

The Kawanabe Kaiun Yume-dori shopping street is in Hirayama, Kawanabe-cho, Minamikyushu City, about 70 minutes by car from JR Kagoshima Chuo Station. Kawanabe has no railway station, so a car or a local bus is the practical option. On both days traffic restrictions run from 7:00 to 19:00 and the road is given over to pedestrians. Parking is available nearby, but with 150,000 visitors it is worth allowing extra time.

Practical Information

• Dates: the first Saturday and Sunday of February each year, though in some years it falls on the second weekend. The 2026 event was held on 14 and 15 February.
• Times: Saturday 8:00 to 18:00, Sunday 8:00 to 17:30. Traffic restrictions run from 7:00 to 19:00 on both days.
• Venue: Kawanabe Kaiun Yume-dori shopping street, Hirayama, Kawanabe-cho, Minamikyushu City, Kagoshima Prefecture
• Enquiries: Kawanabe Futsukaichi Executive Committee, c/o Minamikyushu Chamber of Commerce and Industry, 0993-56-0247
• Access: about 70 minutes by car from JR Kagoshima Chuo Station
• Parking: available. On-street parking is prohibited.
• Official website: https://www.city.minamikyushu.lg.jp/soshikikarasagasu/shokokankoka/kankokoryu/3/447.html

* Dates, details and prices are subject to change. Please check the official website before you go.

(Sources: Minamikyushu City official website, Kagoshima Prefecture official website, Kagoshima Prefecture official tourism website)