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Fukui (prefecture)

Cities / Other destinations / Culture and History / Talk / Travel to Fukui (prefecture), visa requirements / By train / By car / Get around / Fukui (prefecture) attractions and sightseeing / City tours / Good restaurants and cheap meals / Fukui (prefecture) nightlife, bars, clubs and pubs. / Get out

Destinations in Fukui (prefecture)

Fukui (福井, [1]) is the southernmost prefecture in the Hokuriku (北陸) part of the Chubu area of Honshu, Japan.

Cities

Fukui - seat of government in the northern part of the prefecture in Fukui Ken, and an important crossroads historically and today
Echizen - second largest city in the prefecture and ancient capital of the prefecture. Famous as the one-time home of the celebrate author Murasaki Shikibu
Obama - renowned for having the same name as the US President, as well as a large marketing campaign based on that coincidence
Ono - historic castle town
Tsuruga - a small harbor city on both the Hokuriku Toll Road and the Hokuriku Rail Line, and home to two of the JAPCO Nuclear Power Stations
Sakai - re-oganized in 2006 to incorporate the towns of Harue, Maruoka, Mikuni and Awara; Awara is famous for its onsens
Sabae
Katsuyama - mountainous city with popular ski slopes and a very nice dinosaur museum; two dinosaurs, Fukuiraptor and Fukuisaurus, were discovered in Katsuyama

Other destinations

Echizen Coast - Echizen's rocky coastline is famous it's beauty and for delicious crab, as well as other seafood
Tojimbo - a beautiful rock formation located in the north of the prefecture; sadly also a popular suicide location and rumored to be haunted
Eiheiji Temple - the head temple of the Soto Zen school of Buddhism, established in 1244
Mihama - literally "Beautiful Beach", a small ancient fishing village near Tsuruga also where apparently Oda Nobunaga, who is famous for uniting almost all of Japan under one rule, spent a night after a rough battle and thanked the locals by having a garden placed in the backyard of the fief lord's house

Culture and History

Although the characters for Fukui means "lucky well" (福 = lucky or fortunate 井 = well - ie. water hole), the name of the prefecture is the result of a clerical error when the city was first incorporated several hundred years ago. The name was originally meant to be 福居, pronounced the same, but meaning "luck resides here."

Fukui is directly across the Sea of Japan from the Korean Peninsula. Its harbors are frequented by Russian and Korean cargo vessels.

Talk

The dialect most spoken in Fukui now is the Kansai dialect, however several smaller dialects still persist from long ago. Fukui also has its own dialect known as Fukui dialect, which has a sing-song-y rural feeling to it. The Mihama dialect is like many country dialects in Chubu.

Travel to Fukui (prefecture) - Visa Requirements

By train

Fukui is on the Hokuriku Rail Line from Osaka and Kyoto.

By car

If you are able to travel by car or by bus, Fukui is accessible via the Hokuriku Tollway by car from all parts of Chubu, and several different bus lines make stops at Tsuruga and Fukui City from places like the new Chubu International Airport and Nagoya home of the 2005 World Expo.

Tours and Getting around Fukui (prefecture)