Chikugo River Fireworks Festival

The Chikugo River Fireworks Festival is a fireworks display held each summer on the Chikugo River, which flows through Kurume, Fukuoka Prefecture. Boasting one of the largest scales in western Japan, with around 18,000 fireworks coloring the night sky, it is beloved as a representative summer tradition of Kyūshū. Its history is ancient, said to originate in 1650 when dedicatory fireworks were launched at Suitengū, the guardian shrine of the Kurume domain.

A distinctive feature of this fireworks display is that, set against the majestic Chikugo River, the beauty of the fireworks reflected on the water's surface stands out. Multiple launch sites are set up on both banks of the river, and star mines and large shells are launched one after another. The spectacle of light filling the wide night sky and the river's surface is overwhelming, and each year hundreds of thousands of spectators crowd both banks of the river.

The Chikugo River Fireworks Festival is a traditional event uniting faith and entertainment, tied to the festival of Suitengū, which is revered as a deity of protection from water disasters and of safe childbirth and the granting of children. Handed down for over 370 years, these fireworks are a major event symbolizing summer in Kurume—an indispensable annual observance heralding the arrival of summer for the people of the Chikugo region.