NAGANO – Long Field 長野県
“Nagano” refers to the long (nagai 長い) or “flowing” (nagareru 流れる), gently sloping field (almost like a delta) on the Nagano Basin (also called Zenkoji-daira) between two mountain ranges. Today, much of the basin is populated.
・The Nagano place name has been around since at least the 16th century.
・The temple village (monzen) in front of the famous Zenkoji Temple was Nagano Village which is where the prefectural capital was located, and so the prefecture took its name from this place name, renamed from Nakano-ken (中野県).
・The wilderness on the Zenkoji-daira Plain was also called “Nagano.”
・Popular nickname for Nagano today is Shinshu (信州). In the early 2000s, Nagano Governor Tanaka Yasuo had the idea to rename Nagano Prefecture to “Shinshu Prefecture” to boost tourism since “Shinshu” was commonly used to promote tourism in Nagano. The idea eventually fell into obscurity.
Old provincial name: Shinano-no-Kuni (信濃国). The original kanji characters were 科野国 until it was changed to 信濃国 in 704.
*The AI-generated image is for illustrative purposes only and may not accurately depict any particular place in the prefecture.
*Major reference sources: Official prefectural website, Japanese Wikipedia, other websites.
Origin of other prefectural names (etymologies)
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