Tsuyama: A Hidden Historic Town in okayama

Majority of travellers visiting Okayama Prefecture head straight for places like Kurashiki, Korakuen Garden, or Naoshima. Fair enough. But it also means towns like Tsuyama remain strangely absent from most English-language itineraries, which, honestly, is probably part of why it still feels so quiet.

About an hour north of Okayama City, Tsuyama offers a very different side of the prefecture. Once an important castle town during the Edo period, it grew into a center of commerce, scholarship, and craftsmanship. Today, you can wander through preserved merchant streets, learn about traditional Sakushu Kasuri weaving, and stop for coffee inside former public bathhouses and elegant Western-style buildings.

If you’re looking for unique things to do in Okayama Prefecture, this town is one of the most rewarding detours in the region.

I’ll go into each place in more detail below, but if you're still wondering whether Tsuyama is worth visiting, here’s what makes it stand out.

In Tsuyama, you’ll find:

One practical tip: rent a bicycle near Tsuyama Station, at the Tsuyamaeki Information Centre. The town is walkable, but cycling makes it much easier to move between districts. Electric bikes are available for day trips, while regular bicycles can be rented if you’re staying longer.

Tsuyama lies about 90 minutes north of Okayama City by train. The simplest route is the JR Tsuyama Line from Okayama Station. There are also limited express trains that can get you there in about one hour, which makes Tsuyama a very manageable day trip from Okayama.

A lot of people pass through Okayama on their way to Kurashiki, Naoshima, or the islands of the Seto Inland Sea, but heading north feels like entering a different prefecture altogether: rural valleys, historical towns, and places where local traditions are still very visible.

This part of Okayama has also started attracting more attention through the Forest Festival of the Arts Okayama, an international art event held across northern Okayama, including Tsuyama. The festival is scheduled to return in 2027.

Tsuyama also works well as a stopover if you’re continuing on toward Tottori Prefecture and the Sea of Japan coast.

At first glance, Tsuyama feels like a provincial town in northern Okayama. But it is much deeper than it first appears: a former castle town, a merchant center, and later a place influenced by Western learning and early modern architecture. For anyone interested in historic buildings, Tsuyama offers an unusually satisfying mix of preserved merchant streets, castle ruins, Western-style public buildings, and older structures that have been carefully given new life.

By walking (or cycling, in my case) through Joto, you can also get a sense of how carefully castle towns were planned. The streets include masugata (枡形), key-shaped turns designed to slow attackers and make it harder to approach the castle directly.

Another feature I loved was the continuous line of roof eaves stretching along the street. Merchant houses were traditionally built close to the roadside drainage channel, with neighboring buildings aligning their eaves at the same height.

Many of these old buildings have now been restored and repurposed into cafes, small shops, and traditional inns (I will talk about those a bit later!).

As you walk through the neighborhood, you’ll also notice distinctive architectural details typical of Edo-period townhouses, including namako-kabe plaster walls, that helped protect buildings from fire and moisture, and mushikomado windows, small plaster-framed openings on upper floors that let in light and air while preserving privacy.

The streets of Joto were originally laid out as part of the castle town surrounding Tsuyama Castle, which rises on a hill just a short distance away. Built in the early 17th century by the feudal lord Mori Tadamasa, the castle became the political and military center of the region.

Although the main buildings no longer survive, the former castle grounds are now known as Kakuzan Park (鶴山公園), one of the best-known cherry blossom spots in the Chugoku region. In spring, around 1,000 cherry trees bloom across the hill, turning the stone terraces pink.

Even outside sakura season, the castle ruins are worth visiting for the views over town and for the way they help you understand how Tsuyama was laid out below.

Beyond its castle and merchant streets, Tsuyama also played an important role in Japan’s intellectual history. During the Edo period (1603−1868), when the country limited most contact with the outside world, scholars studied Western science and medicine through the Netherlands. This body of knowledge became known as Rangaku, or Dutch learning.

Tsuyama produced several notable figures connected to this movement, the best known being Mitsukuri Genpo (1799−1863). Born in Tsuyama, he later became a major translator of Western scientific texts and helped introduce European medicine and scientific knowledge to Japan in the late Edo period. His work would later influence the spread of modern science during the Meiji era (1868−1912).

If you want to understand how a quiet town like Tsuyama came to produce so many influential figures in Japan’s intellectual history, the Tsuyama Archives of Western Learning (津山洋学資料館) is well worth a visit.

The origins of Otani Bunraku date back to 1853, when a travelling troupe from Awaji Island performed in Otani village. When the troupe later disbanded, several performers remained and began teaching local residents how to operate the puppets. Over time, the tradition was passed down through generations and became the community theatre known today as Otani Bunraku.

Walking around Tsuyama, you start to notice buildings shaped by European design from the Meiji and Taisho periods, when Western ideas and aesthetics were spreading more widely through Japan.

One of the examples is PORT ART & DESIGN TSUYAMA, housed inside the former Senoo Bank Haida Branch, an early 20th-century bank building that has been carefully restored and given a new life as a creative space. Today, you can step inside to see rotating exhibitions by local artists.

A short cycle away, Josai Romance Hall offers another great sample of Tsuyama’s Western-influenced architecture. Built in the Taisho era, it now functions as both a cafe and a cultural space.

If you’re interested in regional craft Sakushu Folkcraft Museum (作州民芸館) is also worth stopping by. The building was once a bank, and you can still feel that in its proportions, materials, and interior details. Today it houses exhibits on local crafts, a small souvenir shop, and a place to stop for lunch.

Together, these places reveal Tsuyama — a town where Edo-period merchant architecture, Taisho-era Western buildings, and repurposed banks all exist within the same walkable area. For architecture lovers, it’s a far richer town than it first appears.

Tsuyama is also home to one of northern Okayama’s traditional textile crafts: Sakushu Kasuri weaving. This indigo-dyed cotton fabric is known for its softly blurred patterns, created by tying, dyeing, and weaving the threads to form motifs. Many of these designs draw on auspicious symbols in Japan, such as cranes, turtles, pine trees, and camellia flowers.

Like many regional crafts in Japan, Sakushu Kasuri came close to disappearing in the late 20th century. After the last master weavers, Hiroshi and Shigeko Sugihara, passed away, the craft faced the real possibility of being lost entirely.

In 1997, local artisans and supporters formed the Sakushu Kasuri Preservation Society to bring the tradition back into everyday life. Through workshops, exhibitions, and training programs at the Sakushu Kasuri Craft Center, they created ways for both visitors and younger generations to experience it firsthand.

During my visit, I tried cotton ginning and weaving the textile myself. Even at the earliest stages, it was clear how much effort the process requires. If you’re short on time, you can also join a shorter workshop and make a small hair accessory using Sakushu Kasuri fabric.

One of the defining techniques of Sakushu Kasuri is sakizome (先染め), or pre-dyed yarn. Instead of dyeing the cloth after weaving, the threads are dyed in advance, with certain sections tightly bound so the dye cannot penetrate them. When woven together, the dyed and undyed sections create the softly blurred kasuri effect.

Trying the process also reminded me of another textile tradition I experienced in Hyogo Prefecture, where I wrote about Banshu-ori textiles. Different as they are, both crafts reveal how much labor can hide behind fabrics that look quiet and simple.

One of the most unique things about Tsuyama was how often coffee led me into old buildings (I know it sounds a bit weird, but trust me here.!)

The current owner, Hirodo-san, grew up nearby. When he decided to turn the building into a cafe, he had no photographs of the original sento to guide him. Instead, he pieced together its former life through clues hidden in the structure and memories shared by elderly neighbors who had once used it.

Lifting the tatami, he found old newspapers tucked underneath decades earlier, some of which later inspired parts of the interior design. Local residents also began bringing him objects connected to the bathhouse’s past. One elderly neighbor had kept the wooden cover from a bathhouse locker for years and later returned it to him. Today it hangs on the wall as a quiet reminder of the building’s former life.

At the center of the room, Hirodo-san prepares coffee from a counter inspired by the bandai, the raised cashier’s stand once found in sento bathhouses. He also serves excellent taiyaki, filled with either red bean paste or custard.

No visit to Tsuyama would feel complete without trying some of its local specialties, many of which reflect the town’s long history as both a castle town and an agricultural center.

By the Edo period, Hatsuyuki had become a well-known Tsuyama souvenir, especially among feudal lords traveling through the region on the road to Edo.

Before World War II, more than 30 confectionery shops in Tsuyama made Hatsuyuki. Today, only one shop continues the tradition: Takeda Machido (武田待喜堂). That alone makes it one of the most distinctive things to try in town.

When I visited, I even had the chance to grill one myself over charcoal. The surface took on a gentle toasted aroma, while the inside stayed soft and so tender!

Tsuyama also has a long history of cattle and beef trading. Even during periods when eating beef was taboo in much of Japan, people here continued to eat it as a kind of medicinal food. Over time, that evolved into a distinctive local beef culture, and dishes like sozuri nabe became regional specialties.

To try it, head to one of the local restaurants in town, or stay overnight at Koujiya Inn I mentioned below.

If you’re staying overnight, I’d strongly recommend choosing accommodation near the historic Joto district. There’s plenty to explore during the day, but staying the night lets you experience the old castle town in a different mood, especially early in the morning, before anyone else is around.

During my stay, I chose Koujiya Inn, a traditional accommodation located within the district. To be honest, it felt better suited to a small group than a solo traveler, simply because the house was so spacious.

The property is part of the former Karita Sake Brewery, founded in 1758 during the Edo period. Over the centuries, the brewery became one of the most prominent businesses in the castle town and even served as an official sake supplier to the Tsuyama domain.

Today, several of the brewery’s former townhouses have been carefully restored and turned into three guest buildings and a shared lounge, allowing visitors to stay inside a historic merchant residence.

Tsuyama may not be the first place people think of when planning a trip through Okayama Prefecture, but that is exactly what makes it so rewarding. For me, what made Tsuyama special was not one single attraction, but the way all of these different elements came together. Around almost every corner, there seemed to be something new to notice, whether it was the shape of a building, a craft tradition being kept alive, or a local dish I had never tried before.