Inakadate Onsen Aomori

Inakadate, a small agricultural village in the Tsugaru plain of Aomori Prefecture, is internationally celebrated for its extraordinary tanbo art — elaborate landscape-scale images created by planting different varieties of coloured rice in precise patterns across paddy fields — a tradition begun in 1993 that has made Inakadate a global pioneer of agricultural art drawing over two hundred thousand visitors each summer. Inakadate Onsen Aomori draws on sodium and bicarbonate thermal waters from the geothermal resources of the Tsugaru plain volcanic zone, providing warm restorative baths in a farming village where the ancient Japanese agricultural tradition of rice cultivation has been brilliantly reinvented as living art visible from an observation tower above the patterned fields. The seasonal tanbo art displays changing each year with new designs, the nearby Mount Iwaki Ski Resort overlooking the Tsugaru plain, and the traditional Tsugaru shamisen music heritage of the Aomori highlands create a uniquely creative and culturally distinctive backdrop for thermal spa relaxation in this remarkable rice art village.