Nagaoka Koshi Onsen

Nagaoka Koshi Onsen serves Niigata's second-largest city, a place of deep historical significance as the birthplace of Admiral Yamamoto Isoroku — the brilliant naval strategist who planned the Pearl Harbor attack and commanded Japan's Combined Fleet until his death in 1943 — and as the site of the Nagaoka Fireworks Festival, one of Japan's three great fireworks displays, held each August over the Shinano River in a three-day celebration that draws over one million spectators and produces some of Japan's most technically sophisticated aerial fireworks in patterns specifically designed to convey messages of peace and recovery since the festival was revived after the city's wartime destruction. The city also houses Nagaoka University of Technology, one of Japan's specialized engineering universities, continuing a tradition of technical excellence in a city that rebuilt from complete wartime destruction into a confident modern urban community. The onsen's siliceous mineral waters provide restorative bathing in a city whose combination of fireworks spectacle, naval history, and snow-country resilience creates one of Niigata's most characterful and historically substantial communities.