Nagano Prefecture occupies the old province of Shinano, a mountainous inland region that has been settled since the Jomon period. Its name appears in the earliest Japanese chronicles, and for centuries it was a crossroads linking the Kanto plain with the Sea of Japan coast and the Kansai region.

In the medieval era, Shinano was contested by powerful warlords. The Takeda and Uesugi clans famously clashed in the Battles of Kawanakajima in the 16th century. Later, the Sanada clan of Ueda rose to prominence, resisting Tokugawa forces before the Edo period brought relative stability. Under the shogunate, the Nakasendo and Hokkoku Kaido highways carried travellers and pilgrims through post towns such as Narai and Tsumago, and Zenko-ji temple in Nagano city became one of Japan’s great pilgrimage destinations.

After the Meiji Restoration, the prefecture took its modern form in 1871. Silk reeling became the economic backbone, with Suwa and Ueda among the leading centres, and Nagano supplied much of Japan’s export silk. Railways opened the region further in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

In the postwar period, precision manufacturing and tourism grew. The 1998 Winter Olympics put Nagano on the world stage, bringing the Shinkansen and expressway links, and cementing the region’s reputation for alpine skiing and snow sports.