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Maruyama Senmaida

Little knownBarely documented in English. This is the kind of place the site exists for.

Researched and written by Hinato

Maruyama Senmaidaterraced fieldsKumanomushi-okuriKiwa

Photo: helohelon / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0) · original

Maruyama Senmaida looks different depending on the season, the weather, and the time of day — none of which a single photo can tell you.

About 1,340 rice paddies step up a mountainside in the Maruyama district of Kiwa, in terraces so small that the local saying is that a farmer counting them came up one short until he lifted his hat and found it underneath. It is on the national hundred terraced fields list and is generally considered the best-preserved terrace landscape in Japan.

It nearly disappeared. By the early 1990s the count had fallen to around 530 as the population aged, and the district organised to restore it, including an owner scheme under which people from elsewhere pay to farm a plot. The two times to come are late May and June, when the flooded paddies hold the sky, and the evening of the mushi-okuri in early July, when torches are lit along the terraces.

Before you go

Access hours

Open access | Daylight for the terraces

Closed: Open year-round

Entry fee

Free | Free parking

Best time to visit

Late May–June for the flooded paddies | Early July for the mushi-okuri torches | September for the harvest

Time to allow

60–90 minutes

Making the trip

Directions

Kiwa-cho Maruyama, Kumano. By car from central Kumano; car essential. Free to visit, with a car park with a rest area and toilets and a further car park higher up beside the viewpoint. About 1,340 paddies are under cultivation, restored from around 530 in the early 1990s. The mushi-okuri pest-driving festival, at which torches are lit through the terraces in the evening, is held in early July. An owner scheme lets outside participants take on a plot.

What to bring

**Late May to June is the water.** Flooded paddies before the rice grows tall, reflecting the sky. That is the photograph and the window is short. **Early July for the torches.** The mushi-okuri revives a pest-driving rite abandoned in 1953, with fire carried through the terraces at dusk. Dates are announced locally. **It was nearly lost.** Down to about 530 paddies before the district organised a restoration. The 1,340 you see is the result of deliberate work, not survival. **Two car parks.** One with facilities lower down, one at the viewpoint above. The upper one is where the whole terrace reads. **Forty minutes from Kumano.** On mountain roads into Kiwa. There is nothing else out here, which is the point.

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