Shiozawa Onsen

Shiozawa Onsen lies in a historic Echigo post town whose Shiozawa Tsumugi — a lustrous handwoven silk textile of exceptional quality produced from Tochigi silk threads twisted by hand and woven on hand-operated Takahata looms — shares with the Ojiya chijimi a joint UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage inscription for the remarkable textile traditions of the Uonuma snow country, where the long winter months historically provided artisans with the concentrated time and humidity required to perfect these demanding weaving techniques. The historic Mikuni Kaido highway district of Shiozawa preserves Edo-period street architecture of unusual integrity, its traditional snow-country merchant houses with their distinctive heavy rooflines and continuous covered walkways (gangi) creating a pedestrian-friendly historic streetscape that gives visitors an atmospheric experience of Japan's snow-country merchant culture. The onsen's siliceous mineral waters provide restorative bathing in a post town whose silk weaving heritage and historic architecture represent two equally refined expressions of the creative possibilities that deep winter and disciplined craftsmanship have produced in the Uonuma snow country over four centuries.