History
Gunma is landlocked and mountainous, which historically pushed its economy toward two very different things: sericulture (silk farming) in its foothills and valleys, and the hot springs produced by its volcanic geology — both of which still define the prefecture today.
Gunma and the wider world
Tomioka Silk Mill is Gunma’s clearest connection to the outside world, and one of the more concrete examples anywhere in Japan of the Meiji government’s deliberate strategy of importing Western technology wholesale. Built in 1872, the mill was designed by French civil engineer Paul Brunat, equipped with French machinery, and initially staffed in part by French instructors training Japanese workers in industrial-scale silk reeling — a single factory that helped turn silk into Japan’s leading export and financed much of the country’s early industrialization. It’s now preserved as a UNESCO World Heritage Site specifically for demonstrating that technology transfer.
Gunma’s other notable export is less industrial and more personal: the prefecture has produced a disproportionate number of Japan’s postwar prime ministers, most notably two generations of the Fukuda family — enough of a pattern that it’s sometimes only half-jokingly called Japan’s “kingdom of prime ministers.”
Neighbors: Gunma and the rest of Kita-Kanto
Gunma rounds out the informal “Kita-Kanto” (North Kanto) trio with Ibaraki and Tochigi — inland, mountainous, and generally overshadowed in national attention by Tokyo immediately to the south, despite each holding at least one genuinely world-class attraction.
Getting there and getting around
Takasaki Station is a Hokuriku/Joetsu Shinkansen stop, about an hour from Tokyo; Kusatsu Onsen requires a further bus connection. A rental car opens up Gunma’s mountain roads and less centrally located onsen towns.
