Nagasaki Lantern Festival

The Nagasaki Lantern Festival grew out of the Chinese New Year celebrations of Shinchi Chinatown, the oldest Chinese quarter in Japan, and it has spread across the whole city centre. Many thousands of lanterns, from small red globes strung across the streets to large illuminated tableaux of zodiac animals, gods and legends, are hung through Chinatown, Central Park, Minato Park, the Hamanmachi shopping arcade, the old Chinese quarter of Tojin Yashiki and the temple of Kofukuji, and each evening they come on at dusk to turn the city red and gold.

From 2026 the festival is fixed at seventeen days from the first Friday of February, running 5 to 21 February in 2027. The opening night brings the lantern-lighting ceremony at Minato Park, and through the run there are dragon and lion dances, Chinese acrobatics and, on the two weekends, the Emperor's Parade, in which costumed processions recreate a Qing imperial progress through the streets. Those parade weekends are by far the busiest; a weekday evening offers the same lanterns with room to look at them.

All the sites are within walking distance of one another along the tram lines through the centre, and Nagasaki is reached by shinkansen from Fukuoka via Takeo-Onsen. Hotels are busy for the parade weekends but manageable in the week. Expect cold, damp evenings, excellent street food in Chinatown and an event that runs long enough to fit around a wider Kyushu winter trip.