Best known for the Awa Odori Dance Festival, Tokushima is a prefecture in the northeast part of the island of Shikoku. About 80 percent of the area is mountainous and undeveloped, and was historically the home of bandits and renegades. Even today, there is a wild beauty about the Iyo Valley with its steep, forested mountains with wild boars and monkeys.
The Yoshino River is popular for whitewater rafting, and at its base opens into a wide delta where the capital, Tokushima City, is found. Snow falls in the high mountains in the winter, and summers can find the side facing the Pacific Ocean pelted by typhoons. However, the climate is generally warm and many unique types of citrus are raised in the prefecture, such as the small, lime-like sudachi. Other important crops are indigo, wakame seaweed, and lotus root.
Awa Odori Dancer (photo: jcruz2000/flickr)
Crafts Tokushima Prefecture specializes in include Otani pottery, bamboo dolls, and indigo dyed products.
Kazurabashi Bridge suspension bridge – in autumn (photo: Hiroaki Kaneko/flickr)
Tokushima is home to the first 23 temples on the Shikoku Junrei pilgrimage.
棚田 / Tanada, Tanono, Kamikatsu, Tokushima
The prefecture, which was originally an area referred to as Awa, includes Awaji Island. Trade and communication with the main island of Honshu increased considerably when bridges were built connecting Tokushima to Kobe. The O-Naruto Bridge spans the famous section of roiling water which forms into the Naruto Whirlpools, and the Akashi Channel Bridge connects Awaji to Kobe. This provides the easiest access for tourists to Tokushima Prefecture; highway buses run multiple times each day to major cities all over Japan.
Temple 3 – Konsenji 金泉寺 (photo: turnerw82/flickr)
Once in Tokushima, travel is easiest by car, but there are local buses and trains run by JR Shikoku. For more information: http://www.pref.tokushima.jp/english/
