Paper-making is still practiced along the Yoshino River's south bank, where the craft of awa washi has shaped the local economy for generations. Yoshinogawa City itself came into being when four municipalities — Kamojima, Kawashima, Yamakawa, and Misato — merged in the early 2000s, and that layered origin is still legible in the way the town moves: a civic hall with a co-working office sits beside a train line that serves commuters heading toward Tokushima, while older rhythms persist quietly underneath.
At the Awa Washi Dentō Sangyō Kaikan in the Yamakawa district, visitors can sit at a wooden frame and lower a screen through a vat of pulped fiber — the cold water, the weight of the mold, the slow drainage. Indigo dyeing is practiced here too, a second thread running through the same hands. Higher up, beyond the rice paddies and cedar slopes, Kōzō-ji temple occupies the summit of Kōzōsan, a mountain of considerable height, where once a year a fire ritual is conducted under strict conditions. Fireflies still gather in the Misato area each summer, enough to sustain a festival — the Misato Hotaru Matsuri — and the Funakubo rhododendron colony flowers somewhere between those slopes and the river plain. The place holds its traditions without announcing them loudly. You notice them the way you notice the smell of paper: only when you stop walking.
Where to stay
A day is rarely enough.
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What converges here
2 in this city. 25 within 25 km of the city hall.
- Misato Hotaru Museum
- The Hall of Awa Handmade Japanese Paper
- Awa City Donari Historical Museum
- Awa City Ichiba Folk Historical Material Hall
- 上板町歴史民俗資料館
See 20 more
- Awa Historic Park
- Tokushima Archaeological Museum
- Tokushima Wooden Toy Museum
- Tokushima Prefectural Buried Cultural Properties Research Centre
- Asutamu Land Tokushima
- Tokushima City Tenguhisa Museum
- Aizumi Town Historical Museum Ai-no-Yakata
- Tokushima Prefectural Museum
- Tokushima Modern Art Museum
- Naruto City Kagawa Toyohiko Memorial Museum
- Naruto German House
- Awa Odori Kaikan
- Tokushima Kyōdo Bunka Kaikan
- Awa Gin Plaza
- Tokushima Prefectural Museum of Literature and Calligraphy
- Tokushima Castle Museum
- Suoh Art Museum
- 徳島県戦没者記念館
- とらまる人形劇ミュージアム
- Matsushige Historical Folk Museum and Joruri Puppet Museum
Distances are straight-line from the municipal office. Each website was checked in September 2026.
- Misato Fireflies and Their Habitat
- Funakubo Ontsutsuji Azalea Grove
- Mount Kotsu
- Kamojima
- Awa-Kawashima
- Awa-Yamakawa
- Ushijima
- Manabu
- Nishi-Mue
- Oiezuka
- Yamase
- Kawata