Japanese Festivals

 Japanese festivals are traditional festive occasions. Some festivals have their roots in Chinese festivals but have undergone dramatic changes as they mixed with local customs.

Some are so different that they do not even remotely resemble the original festival despite sharing the same name and date. There are also various local festivals (e.g. Tobata Gion) that are mostly unknown outside a given prefecture. It is commonly said that you will always find a festival somewhere in Japan.

Unlike most people in East Asia, Japanese people generally do not celebrate Chinese New Year (it having been supplanted by the WesternNew Year's Day in the late 19th century); although Chinese residents in Japan still do. In Yokohama Chinatown, Japan's biggest Chinatown, tourists from all over Japan come to enjoy the festival. And similarly the Nagasaki Lantern Festival^[1] is based in Nagasaki's Chinatown. See:Japanese New Year.

List of famous matsuri

Name Matsuri	Note	Place
Aoi	held at Shimogamo Shrine and Kamigamo Shrine in May	Kyoto
Atsuta	held at Atsuta Shrine in June	Nagoya
Gion	held in July	Kyoto
Hadaka		Okayama
Hakata Gion Yamakasa	held at Kushida-jinja in July	Fukuoka
Hōnen	held at Tagata Shrine in March	Komaki
Jidai	held on October 22	Kyoto
Kanamara	held at Kanayama shrine in April	Kawasaki
Kanda	held at Kanda Myojin shrine in May	Tokyo
Kanto[citation needed]	held on 3 to 7 August	Akita
Kishiwada Danjiri	held on September	Kishiwada
Miki Autumn Harvest Festival	held at Ōmiya Hachiman Shrine in October	Miki
Nada no Kenka	held at Matsubara Hachiman Shrine in October 14-15	Himeji
Nagoya	held in Hisaya Ōdori Park in Sakae, Nagoya	Nagoya
Sanja	held at Asakusa Shrine in May	Tokyo
Sannō	held at Hie Shrine in June	Tokyo
Tenjin	held at Ōsaka Tenman-gū in July	Osaka