Kochi City’s Sunday market is held on Otesuji, the street that runs east from the Otemon gate of Kochi Castle, and in summer it starts at 5:00 in the morning. It is not the city’s only street market: the same municipal office runs four of them, on Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, and the three weekday markets are a fraction of the size.
Four markets run on four named weekdays, and only on those days
The city’s commerce promotion section publishes one page covering all four street markets. Each one takes its name from the day it is held, and the page states that a market named for a day is not held on any other day. It also states that the markets are held without regard to public holidays. The guide page prints fixed exceptions all the same: none of the four is held on 1 or 2 January, and the Sunday market is closed from 10 to 12 August as well.
The Sunday market occupies two lanes on one side of Otesuji, the avenue running straight east from the castle’s Otemon gate. The Tuesday market stands one street south of the tram line at Kamimachi 4-chome, along a channel about 2 metres wide, with stalls set on boards laid across the water. The Thursday market runs south from the Kencho-mae intersection, where the tram line meets the road leading down from the prefectural government office. The Friday market is lined up under the JR railway viaduct north of the Atago shopping street.
| Market | Where the city page places it | Stalls | Hours, setting up and clearing away included |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sunday | Otesuji | About 350 or more | April to September 5:00 to 17:00; October to March 5:30 to 16:00 |
| Tuesday | Kamimachi 4-chome and 5-chome | 13 | 6:00 to 16:00 |
| Thursday | South of Kencho-mae | 64 | From about 6:00 to 16:00 |
| Friday | Under the JR viaduct, Atago | 14 | From about 6:00 to about 14:00 |
The hours quoted include set-up and take-down, and the page attaches the same warning to all four: stall numbers tend to fall away through the afternoon, weather reduces them, and a market can be cancelled outright for a disaster or severe weather. The Sunday market is also the only one of the four with a wheelchair to lend. The loan is arranged by telephone in advance on 088-823-9375, and because the section is closed on Saturdays the call has to be made by Friday. Staff bring the chair on the day to one of two points, the north side of Hirome Market or the north side of Otemae Park, and the page states the loan applies to the Sunday market only and that the number of chairs is limited.
Two pages of the same city give different stall counts for Sunday
The page describing the four markets gives the Sunday market about 350 or more stalls. The front page of the same section of the same site, updated a day later on 1 April 2023, describes the Sunday market as having about 300 stalls run mainly by farmers from the surrounding area. Both pages were live when they were read in September 2026, and neither explains the other. The guide page’s own note that numbers fall with the weather and through the day suggests why a single figure is hard to print, but that is the reading here, not something either page says.
The schedule page carries a third oddity. Read in September 2026, it states that the September markets are going ahead as normal and links to a September events sheet, while its own update stamp reads 31 October 2025.
The city dates the market to 1690 and names the law that fixed the days
Kochi’s history page puts the opening of the street market at Genroku 3, that is 1690, and says the date was not settled until the mid-1950s. A market trader named Kamakura, who had chaired the traders’ association, wrote in a 1963 book that he had questioned elderly traders and searched the prefectural library without finding the origin, and that the answer came from the historian Michio Hirao, who edited the Yamauchi family history.
The evidence is a domain law, the Genroku Daijomoku, issued in the third month of 1690 by Toyomasa Yamauchi, the fourth lord of Tosa. Its clause on market towns fixes six market days a month across three towns: the 2nd and 17th at Asakura, the 7th and 22nd at Hasuike, and the 12th and 27th at Shin-ichi. A later code of 1857 keeps the count at six a month but spreads it over five places and different dates: the 2nd and 12th, the 7th, the 17th, the 26th and the 27th. The page adds that the places and dates kept moving up to 1871, spreading to three further streets in the city.
The prefectural museum by the castle opens an hour earlier on Sundays
The Kochi Castle Museum of History stands beside the castle and gives its address as 2-7-5 Otesuji, the street the Sunday market occupies. Its visitor page gives opening hours of 9:00 to 18:00, except on Sundays, when it opens at 8:00. Entry to the exhibition rooms closes 30 minutes before the museum does. It is shut from 27 December to 1 January.
Admission changes with the calendar and with who is paying. While a special exhibition is running, an individual aged 18 or over pays 800 yen and a group of 20 or more pays 640 yen each. Outside those periods the figures are 500 and 400 yen. An annual pass is 2,000 yen from the day of purchase. A combined ticket covering the museum and Kochi Castle is 1,040 yen during a special exhibition and 800 yen otherwise.
Those four numbers do not move together. Subtracting the museum-only price from the combined price gives 240 yen in the exhibition period and 300 yen outside it, a difference of 60 yen in what the castle half of the ticket adds. That subtraction is ours; the fee section prints only the museum and combined prices, not the castle’s own admission.
The same page lists who pays nothing: anyone of high school age or younger, on showing a name badge or student card; holders of the Kochi prefectural or municipal Choju techo, a card issued to older residents; and holders of any of five certificates, covering physical disability, intellectual disability, mental health welfare, war-wounded status and atomic bomb survivor status, together with one carer. Wheelchairs, pushchairs and walking carts are lent free at the ground-floor information desk, and the coin lockers take a 100-yen coin that is returned.
Kochi records heavy rain and long sunshine in the same year
The Japan Meteorological Agency’s normals for the Kochi station, calculated over the 30 years from 1991 to 2020, put annual precipitation at 2,666.4 mm and annual sunshine at 2,159.7 hours. Those two figures sit on the same 30-year footing, so the station is recording both a wet year and a long one.
The rain is concentrated. September is the wettest month at 398.1 mm, ahead of June at 359.5 mm and July at 357.3 mm; January is the driest at 59.1 mm. Mean temperature for the year is 17.3C, with August the warmest month at a mean of 27.9C and a mean daily maximum of 32.1C, and January the coolest at a mean of 6.7C. The cloud amount, fog-day and thunder-day columns on the same table carry the agency’s reference-value mark, and they are not used here; the snow-day column carries no such mark.
| Kochi normals, 1991 to 2020 | Value |
|---|---|
| Annual precipitation | 2,666.4 mm |
| Annual sunshine | 2,159.7 hours |
| Wettest month | September, 398.1 mm |
| Driest month | January, 59.1 mm |
| Mean annual temperature | 17.3C |
| Mean daily maximum, August | 32.1C |
Cherry blossom reporting for the country as a whole, including which stations open first in March, is set out separately in our piece on March stations and peak dates.
Kochi is the widest of Shikoku’s four prefectures and the 45th by population
The prefecture’s own introduction gives an area of about 7,104 square kilometres, the widest of the four prefectures on Shikoku and 18th among the 47 nationally, of which about 84 per cent is forest. Its population was 691,527 at the 2020 national census, 45th nationally, giving a density of 97.3 people per square kilometre.
The same page describes the coast in two halves: a ria coastline in the west, and an uplifted coast in the east with flat sand beaches. It lists typhoons alongside the complicated terrain and the mild climate as the forces that shaped Tosa, the old name for the province. Kochi borders Ehime and Tokushima across the Shikoku mountains to the north and faces the Pacific to the south.
For a visitor, the practical consequence of these numbers is the timetable rather than the scenery. A Sunday arrival can reach a market that has been trading since before dawn; a Tuesday arrival reaches 13 stalls where Sunday has about 350 or more; and a Sunday visitor to the museum across the road can be inside it at 8:00, an hour before the rest of the week allows.
Sources Checked
Kochi City, commerce promotion section — guide to the four street markets
Confirmed the four markets and their days, the Sunday market on Otesuji east of the castle’s Otemon gate with about 350 or more stalls, summer hours 5:00 to 17:00 for April to September and winter hours 5:30 to 16:00 for October to March, the Tuesday market at Kamimachi 4-chome and 5-chome with 13 stalls and a channel about 2 metres wide, the Thursday market south of Kencho-mae with 64 stalls, the Friday market under the JR viaduct at Atago with 14 stalls, the 6:00 to 16:00 and 6:00 to about 14:00 hours, the inclusion of set-up and take-down in the quoted hours, the note that stall numbers fall through the afternoon and in poor weather, the note that a market may be cancelled for a disaster or severe weather, and the closure of all four markets on 1 and 2 January and of the Sunday market from 10 to 12 August.
https://www.city.kochi.kochi.jp/site/gairoichi/guide.html
Kochi City — street market front page
Confirmed the description of the Sunday market as having about 300 stalls run mainly by farmers from the surrounding area, the statement that the street markets have more than 300 years of history, and the update date of 1 April 2023.
https://www.city.kochi.kochi.jp/site/gairoichi/
Kochi City — history of the street markets
Confirmed the opening date of Genroku 3, 1690, the account of the trader Kamakura’s search and Michio Hirao’s identification, the Genroku Daijomoku issued by Toyomasa Yamauchi in the third month of 1690, the six market days a month at Asakura on the 2nd and 17th, Hasuike on the 7th and 22nd and Shin-ichi on the 12th and 27th, the 1857 code with six days a month across five places on the 2nd, 12th, 7th, 17th, 26th and 27th, and the spread to three further streets by 1871.
https://www.city.kochi.kochi.jp/site/gairoichi/history.html
Kochi City — street market schedule page
Confirmed that the markets are held without regard to public holidays, that a market is held only on the weekday in its name, the notice that the September markets are going ahead as normal, and the page’s update stamp of 31 October 2025.
https://www.city.kochi.kochi.jp/site/gairoichi/kaisaiyotei.html
Kochi City — wheelchair loan at the Sunday market
Confirmed the advance telephone booking on 088-823-9375, the Friday deadline because the section is closed on Saturdays, the two handover points at the north side of Hirome Market and the north side of Otemae Park, the limit to the Sunday market, and the note that the number of chairs is limited.
https://www.city.kochi.kochi.jp/site/gairoichi/kurumaisu.html
Kochi Castle Museum of History, a prefectural museum — visitor information
Confirmed opening hours of 9:00 to 18:00 with Sundays from 8:00, the last admission to exhibition rooms 30 minutes before closing, closure from 27 December to 1 January, admission of 800 yen individual and 640 yen for groups of 20 or more during special exhibitions, 500 and 400 yen at other times, the 2,000 yen annual pass, the combined museum and castle ticket at 1,040 yen and 800 yen, the free categories covering high school age and younger, Choju techo holders and holders of five listed certificates with one carer, the free loan of wheelchairs, pushchairs and walking carts at the ground-floor desk, and the 100-yen returnable lockers.
https://www.kochi-johaku.jp/guide/
Japan Meteorological Agency — climate normals for the Kochi station
Confirmed the station heading for Kochi in Kochi Prefecture, the 1991 to 2020 statistical period with 30 years of data across the columns used, annual precipitation of 2,666.4 mm, annual sunshine of 2,159.7 hours, September at 398.1 mm, June at 359.5 mm, July at 357.3 mm, January at 59.1 mm, a mean annual temperature of 17.3C, August at a mean of 27.9C and a mean daily maximum of 32.1C, January at a mean of 6.7C, and the reference-value marks on the cloud, fog day and thunder day columns, the snow day column carrying none.
https://www.data.jma.go.jp/stats/etrn/view/nml_sfc_ym.php?prec_no=74&block_no=47893
Kochi Prefecture — introduction to the prefecture
Confirmed the area of about 7,104 square kilometres, the statement that it is the widest of the four prefectures on Shikoku and 18th nationally, forest at about 84 per cent of the area, the 2020 census population of 691,527 and the 45th place nationally, the density of 97.3 people per square kilometre, the ria coastline in the west and uplifted coast with sand beaches in the east, the borders with Ehime and Tokushima across the Shikoku mountains, and the reference to typhoons.
https://www.pref.kochi.lg.jp/info/fudo.html
Last updated: September 2026
