Karatsu's fourteen hikiyama are built of layered washi paper and lacquer over a wooden frame, finished in gold and silver: a lion's head, a samurai helmet, a sea bream, a turtle, a dragon. Some are two centuries old and each weighs two to three tonnes.
UNESCO inscribed them in 2016.
No attendance figure is collected in this pass.
The second day is the one the town itself cares about: the floats are hauled off the road and across the soft sand of the Nishinohama beach to the temporary shrine site, which takes hundreds of pullers and a great deal of shouting, and is where a float can and does get stuck.
Karatsu is in Saga prefecture on the Genkai Sea, an hour from Fukuoka, and the dates are fixed at 2–4 November.
PlanningFixed on 2–4 November; the third day's haul across the beach is the one to see.
Dates
computed from the rule
Computed from the recurrence rule we record for this entry, not copied from a listing. A date marked ~ comes from a calendar conversion and the observance may fall a day or two either side.