Where the name Omiya comes from, what stood here before the station, and what you can still spot on a walk today. Then the events near the station that we have checked on the official pages.
Omiya means Great Shrine, and the name refers to Musashi Ichinomiya Hikawa Shrine. Walk east from Omiya Station through the shopping district and you will reach Hikawa Sando, the shrine's long approach road. From its first torii gate in the south to the shrine, the route extends for approximately two kilometers. The town grew around this sacred destination long before the railway existed.
Hikawa Shrine appears in the Engishiki, a collection of regulations and shrine records compiled in the Heian period. Medieval leaders including Minamoto no Yoritomo worshipped there, and the Tokugawa shogunate later granted the shrine land assessed at 300 koku. East of the shrine lay the watery landscape of Minuma, while the approach road followed higher, relatively level ground.
During the Edo period, the shrine settlement became a post town on the Nakasendo highway. The highway is believed to have originally passed close to the approach before being moved farther west. Walk from the station across the old highway toward the tree-lined shrine road. This short journey reveals how a religious settlement developed into a transport and commercial center, while retaining the name of its great shrine.
→ Leave Omiya Station by the east exit and cross the former Nakasendo toward Hikawa Sando. Follow the long avenue of mature trees north to Musashi Ichinomiya Hikawa Shrine. The transition from busy shopping streets to the shaded shrine approach reveals the town's origins.
Sources (in Japanese): さいたま市「武蔵一宮氷川神社と氷川参道」, さいたま市立博物館「第44回特別展・中山道大宮宿」
Omiya might never have become the railway hub it is today. When the railway from Ueno to Kumagaya opened in 1883, trains passed through the area without stopping. Local merchants feared that their historic post town would decline. A group led by Shirai Sukeshichi campaigned for a station, and Omiya Station finally opened in 1885. A town built around the Nakasendo highway gained a new future as a railway junction.
Walk east from the station and you reach the former Nakasendo, where inns and merchant houses once served travelers crossing Japan by road. Continue toward Hikawa Sando and the shrine that gave Omiya its name. On the western side of the station, a different transport landscape developed. In 1894, the Nippon Railway established its Omiya railway works, making the district an important center for locomotive and rolling-stock maintenance.
The opening of Omiya's large railway marshalling yard in 1927 strengthened its role as a national transport center. Today, multiple railway lines converge at Omiya, and the area's railway heritage survives in the operational railway works and nearby Railway Museum. Walk east to trace the old post town, then west and north to discover how railway engineering transformed Omiya into one of the region's major cities.
→ From Omiya Station's east exit, follow the old Nakasendo toward Hikawa Sando. On the west side, look toward JR East's Omiya rolling-stock center. Farther north, the Railway Museum explores the city's railway history. The two sides of the station tell different chapters of Omiya's development.
Sources (in Japanese): さいたま市観光国際協会「さいたま市エリアガイド・大宮」, さいたま市「文化芸術都市創造計画・鉄道のまち大宮」
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We list events we could confirm on the official page or official Instagram of the venue or organiser. Details can change, tickets sell out and venues close, so check the official page before you go. Distances are straight-line and travel times are rough estimates. Photos show the venue or its surroundings, not the event itself. Titles and descriptions are our own translations from Japanese. This site contains affiliate links (ads).