Kakunodate

Ashina Yoshikatsu laid out Kakunodate in 1620, and the plan has barely changed in four hundred years. An earth firebreak called the hiyoke split the samurai quarter of Uchimachi to the north from the merchants' Tomachi to the south, and a gate in it closed at night. In 1976 the samurai street became one of the first districts in Japan protected as a group of traditional buildings.

The street names still tell you who lived where, since samurai blocks end in -cho written with the character 丁 and merchant streets with 町. A walk from the station round Uchimachi, Tomachi and the second samurai street at Tamachi comes to about 5 km. The town's craft is kaba-zaiku, boxes and tea caddies covered in polished cherry bark.