TokyoTomo Travel Guide

The Sapporo Snow Festival, one of Japan’s largest winter events, attracts a growing number of visitors from Japan and abroad every year. Every winter, about two million people come to Sapporo to see the hundreds of beautiful snow statues and ice sculptures which line Odori Park,the grounds at Satoland, and the main street in Susukino.

For seven days in February 5-11, 2010, these statues and sculptures(both large and small) turn Sapporo into a winter dreamland of crystal-like ice and white snow.

The image on the right is the official poster for the Sapporo Snow Festival 2010. It will be the 61th event and each year a different poster will be used.

The Snow Festival began in 1950, when local high school students built six snow statues in Odori Park. in 1955, the Self-Defense Force joined in and built the very first massive snow sculpture, for which the Snow Festival has become famous for now. The Festival has grown from these humble beginnings to become one of the biggest and most well known of Hokkaido’s winter events. The Snow Festival with its gaining popularity among foreign visitors is also being seen as one of the international events during winter.

For more information, visit the office site www.snowfes.com