The bells arrive before the horses do. On the day of Chagu-Chagu Umakko, the sound of decorated horses moving through the landscape carries across Takizawa long before the procession comes into view — a sound that belongs to Kigoshi Sōzen Shrine, where the horses are blessed for good health before they set out. The shrine sits at the origin of a ritual that has shaped the agricultural calendar here for generations, when horse-rearing was the practical backbone of the land rather than its ceremonial memory.
Takizawa itself occupies an in-between geography. The Kitakami River marks one edge of the city, the Shizukuishi River another, and to the northwest, Iwate-san rises into the alpine plant zones that fall within the Towada-Hachimantai natural park. Between that mountain edge and the residential clusters near Takizawa Station, the land shifts register — farmland giving way to housing developments, the pastoral and the suburban pressed against each other without much transition. For decades before receiving city status, Takizawa functioned as a dormitory for Morioka, and that history is legible in the landscape: density where the commuter routes run, quieter agricultural ground elsewhere.
What persists, alongside the subdivisions, is the presence of Nanbu Koma — the horse breed associated with this part of Iwate — and the bells of Chagu-Chagu Umakko, which give the place a sound that no other city in the prefecture quite replicates.
Where to stay
A day is rarely enough.
Booking through these links supports AURA at no extra cost to you.
What converges here
1 in this city. 20 within 25 km of the city hall.
- the Archaeological Museum of Takizawa Shi
- Koiwai Farm Museum
- Iwate Museum of Art
- Morioka Memorial Museum of Great Predecessors
- Morioka City Study Museum of Archeological Site
See 15 more
- Iwate Prefectural Museum
- Morioka History and Culture Museum
- Fukazawa Kōko Nonohana Museum
- Morioka Takuboku & Kenji Youth Museum
- Morioka Museum of Letter
- Morioka City Central Community Center
- Morioka Machiya Monogatari Museum
- Shizukuishi History and Folklore Museum
- Morioka Tonan History and Folklore Museum
- Goshoko Kawamura Art Museum
- Ishikawa Takuboku Memorial Museum
- Morioka Tamayama History and Folklore Museum
- Yahaba Town Museum of History and Folklore
- Matsuo Mine Museum
- Kodo=Araebisu Nomura Museum
Distances are straight-line from the municipal office. Each website was checked in September 2026.
- Iwatesan Alpine Plant Zone
- Towada-Hachimantai
- Takizawa
- Sugoko
- Okama
- Koiwai