Famous garden with the world's most azaleas — about 10,000 plants covering 13 types, a Nationally Designated Place of Scenic Beauty protected by generations of Tatebayashi domain lords. The spring azalea festival draws hundreds of thousands of visitors from across Japan.

The origins of Tsutsujigatoka Park are not precisely documented, but some of the azalea plants on the site are estimated to be over 1,000 years old, suggesting they may have grown naturally here since around the Heian period. During the early modern era, successive lords of the Tatebayashi domain to…