It reads かるいざわまち — Karuizawa Machi. This is one of the harder names in the country: small municipalities are exactly where Japan's nandoku chimei (難読地名, "hard-to-read place names") live.
This place is one of 1,651 in Chimei, our Japan city game. Read the kanji, then pin it on the map.
Play Chimei →Every dot is one of Japan's 1,651 municipalities, plotted at its real coordinates. Karuizawa is marked in red.
Karuizawa is a resort town located in Nagano Prefecture, Japan. As of 1 October 2016, the town had an estimated population of 20,323 in 9897 households, and a population density of 130 persons per km2. The total area of the town is 156.03 km2 (60.24 sq mi).
Measured as real great-circle distance from Karuizawa.
Booking links are affiliate links — they cost you nothing and help keep Nihoner free.
These are affiliate links. Nihoner may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.
軽井沢町 is read かるいざわまち (Karuizawa Machi). It is a town in Nagano Prefecture.
町 means "town" and is read chō / machi. A town. 町 is read either chō or machi — which one is local convention, and it varies by region. This is one of the classic traps in Japanese place names.
Karuizawa has a population of 19,648 across 156 km², making it the 885th largest of Japan's 1,651 municipalities and the 21st largest of the 73 in Nagano.
The closest municipalities to Karuizawa are Miyota Machi (9 km), Komoro Shi (16 km), Saku Shi (15 km).