When British explorer Isabella Bird visited Yamagata prefecture, northwest Japan, in summer 1878, the capital, Yamagata city, was "a thriving town of 21,000" people. Japan had only recently reopened to visitors after more than 200 years of strict isolationism, and Bird was one of the first foreigners allowed to tour the archipelago unsupervised.
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An “Asiatic Arcadia”: The city of Kaminoyama, in Yamagata prefecture, as seen from a nearby mountainside in July 2020. (Photo by Alice French)
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