Ōmiya Bonsai Village

Ōmiya Bonsai Village (大宮盆栽村, Ōmiya Bonsai-mura) is the nickname for the bonsai nursery precinct in Bonsai-chō (盆栽町, Bonsai-chō), Kita-ku, Saitama, Japan.

Bonsai Village is located near Ōmiya-kōen Station on the Tobu Noda Line. It is closed on every Thursday (unless the Thursday falls on a national holiday).

History

• 1925: Settled by a group of professional bonsai gardeners who originally lived around Dangō-Zaka (Hongō) area in Tokyo and emigrated from there due to the crucial damages caused by the Great Kantō earthquake in 1923, at Toro and Hongō settlements of Ōsato village.^[1]
• 1940 Ōsato village merged with other villages to form Ōmiya city.
• 1957 The official suburb name 盆栽町 (Bonsai-chō, lit. Bonsai Town) was given to the precinct.
• 2001 Ōmiya city merges with other cities to form Saitama City.
• 1 April 2003 on the day of the government designation of Saitama City Bonsai-chō was classified in Kita-ku.

Today

The Bonsai Village consists of about ten privately owned bonsai gardens. From the early 1990s, Omiya Bonsai-cho has seen a slight contraction in the number of nurseries. As of 2007, the Bonsai Village contains hundreds of thousands of bonsai trees in a site of about 330,000 square meters.^[2]

The area also contains the Omiya Bonsai Art Museum, opened in 2010. The museum has indoor exhibits of bonsai history and art, as well as an outdoor area with a number of bonsai specimens. Some of the museum's materials were drawn from the Takagi Bonsai Museum of Art in Tokyo.^[3]

Each year, Bonsai Village holds the "Great Bonsai Festival" from 3-5 May. During the festival the area is packed with many bonsai devotees from all over Japan.

See also

• Bonsai - Japanese tradition of growing miniature trees in containers

References

External links

• Bonsai in Japan Omiya
• More about Omiya Bonsai Village with pictures

Coordinates: 35°55′40″N 139°37′53″E / 35.927763°N 139.631513°E / 35.927763; 139.631513