Hakusan Park

Meiji-era park with shrine, pond and the old prefectural government building

Hakusan Park is the green heart of central Niigata, a handsome Meiji-era garden built around a large pond and the Hakusan Shrine. Cherry blossoms make it busy in spring; the rest of the year it is pleasantly quiet. The Old Prefectural Government Building (Kyūdai-mon-cho) on the park edge is an 1883 Western-style wooden structure that is now a cultural property, occasionally open for guided tours.

Walk the pond circuit, cross the arched stone bridge to the small island shrine, and visit the flower market stalls that line the entrance on weekend mornings. The park is a five-minute walk from Hakusan Station or fifteen minutes on foot from Niigata Station.

things to do sight
A story
Niigata's Old Prefectural Assembly Hall, built in 1883, is one of the earliest Western-style government buildings in Japan. When the assembly moved to new premises, the hall was preserved in Hakusan Park — a rare example of Meiji-era civic architecture that escaped the wartime bombing that destroyed much of Japan's pre-war built heritage.