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The story
Municipalities such as Kanazawa and Hida-Takayama, which have long marketed themselves as tourist destinations under the label “Little Kyoto,” are increasingly moving to distance themselves from that name. According to the Sankei Shimbun, membership in the nationwide organization of self-styled “Little Kyotos” has fallen to roughly two-thirds of its peak, reflecting a shift in tourism strategy toward highlighting each region’s own distinct history and culture. On 5ch, the topic sparked a thread full of similar regional nicknames — “Little Edo,” “Little Tokyo,” “America Village” and more — with one Kanazawa resident commenting, “Nobody around here actually calls it ‘Little Kyoto.’”
9/2 (Wed) 12:44
Sankei Shimbun
The label “Little Kyoto,” used by municipalities with scenery resembling Kyoto or historical ties to it, is at a turning point. Membership in the nationwide organization of self-styled “Little Kyotos” has dropped to about two-thirds of its peak. Kanazawa and Hida-Takayama — both strongly associated with the “Little Kyoto” image — have also taken the sign down. Behind this is a shift in tourism trends toward valuing each region’s own distinctive history and culture, with experts predicting that “differentiation from other regions will likely keep spreading.”
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
Katori, Chiba
Kawagoe, Saitama
Tochigi, Tochigi
That's all in the Kanto region though.
Except for Kawagoe, none of those were ever actually Edo.
Since nothing of the real Edo (old Tokyo) survives anymore, "Little Edo" is basically more Edo than Edo itself.
Little Tokyo already exists — it's in Los Angeles, California.
"Little Tokyo" is Omiya.
Hida-Takayama's biggest selling point is its rich, abundant forests, isn't it.
(´・ω・`)(´・ω・`)
Meanwhile Kyoto, with filthy pachinko parlors and red-light joints crammed all over Kawaramachi and Kiyamachi, is basically just garbage at this point.
The University of Tokyo's Hongo campus sits on the site of the Edo-era upper residence of the Maeda clan, lords of the Kaga domain (Kanazawa).
In Kanazawa they're called "goppo-ishi," and in winter they're used to knock the snow off your sandals.
Calling yourself "Little Edo" → free, you don't have to pay anyone a thing.
That's the big difference.
Wait, Kyoto was actually charging money for it? That's so cheap, honestly.
I got marked wrong on a test for writing "Akaishi Mountains" (the actual name) and protested hard.
They should just found a city called "東京都市," written with the same kanji as "Tokyo," but read it as "Higashi-Kyoto-shi" — "East Kyoto City."
Apparently there was a "Europe Village" too, but it never caught on.
Though with all the shops run by Africans, it was basically "Africa Village" in practice lol
My middle school class trip was to Hida-Takayama. In high school it was Hagi and Tsuwano.
Kyoto played the flashy, attention-grabbing master, while Osaka was more like the head clerk handling the practical work. Osaka represents the down-to-earth, common-folk side of things, so maybe that image just never grew into a tourism draw.
There's already a nickname for it: the "Gaga $1-Million Purification Town" (a homophone pun on "Kaga Hyakuman-goku no Jōkamachi," the castle town of the million-koku Kaga domain).
Honestly, most people only find out it's called that when someone else brings it up lol
Went to Kanazawa recently — the traditional atmosphere and the crowd levels were just right, felt like a "good Kyoto."
Kanazawa was the first city in Japan to adopt a landscape ordinance. Since primary-color signage is banned, red signs come out looking dark brown instead.
Maybe it's not "Little Kyoto" but "Little Saitama City" (a pun — "chiisai Tama-shi" echoes "Ko-Kyoto" while also ribbing Saitama as a nowhere town).
Got some business with little Tama City or something?
Background and key points of this discussion
“Little Kyoto” is a nickname that municipalities across Japan began adopting during the postwar tourism boom, riding on Kyoto’s name recognition — there’s no official certification system behind it. In recent years, with the spread of social media, tourism strategies have increasingly shifted toward showcasing “what only this place has” rather than emphasizing similarities to somewhere else, and this move away from “Little Kyoto” is part of that broader trend. As seen in the thread with Kanazawa’s “Kaga Hyakuman-goku” brand, regions that already have an established identity of their own seem less reliant on the “Little Kyoto” label. On the other hand, in places like Hida-Takayama and Kawagoe’s “Little Edo,” the nickname itself has functioned as a tourism asset, so it’s hard to tell from the original article alone whether this shift away from the label will play out uniformly nationwide.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Newsplus) thread ““Don’t Call Us ‘Little Kyoto’”: Movement to Shed the Label Accelerates — Kanazawa and Hida-Takayama Also Step Away, Betting on Their Own Identity.”
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