Jōetsu, Niigata

Jōetsu is a city in the southwest of Niigata Prefecture, bordered by the Sea of Japan to the north and Nagano Prefecture to the south, about 133 kilometres west of the prefectural capital Niigata. Its name can mislead, because the kanji combine upward, surpass and city and come from Kami Echigo, or Upper Echigo, the part of Echigo Province nearest the capital Kyoto, even though the city lies in the southwest of the prefecture. It is renowned for heavy snow, an annual cherry blossom festival, sake and Koshihikari rice, and Kasugayama Castle, the base of the Sengoku warlord Uesugi Kenshin, stood here. Skiing in Japan began on Mount Kanaya in 1911, when the Austro-Hungarian major Theodor von Lerch started ski training there. Takada and Naoetsu merged to form Jōetsu in 1971, and in 2005 it annexed 13 neighbouring municipalities and so expanded its area fourfold. As of 2020 it had about 189,430 residents on 973.81 square kilometres.