Tohoku University campus tour: Katahira, Kawauchi and Aobayama

Tohoku University is the reason many international students first hear of Sendai, the largest city in Japan's north-east. Founded in 1907 as the country's third imperial university, it has no single campus. Instead it occupies several sites that climb from the city centre, across the Hirose River, into the forest of Aobayama. A subway line now ties most of them together, which makes a visit far simpler than the map suggests. This guide explains what is where and how to see it in a day.

Three principles and an early first

The university describes itself through three long-standing ideas: research first, open doors, and practice-oriented learning. The second has a concrete history. In 1913 Tohoku became the first of Japan's imperial universities to admit women, and from its early years it also accepted graduates of technical and teachers' schools who were shut out elsewhere.

The research tradition is just as old. The antenna design that later sat on rooftops around the world, the Yagi-Uda antenna, was developed here in the 1920s, and the university's materials science institute has been well known for generations.

The campuses at a glance

Katahira: the original campus and headquarters, near the city centre, with several research institutes.
Kawauchi: general courses for first- and second-year students, the humanities and social sciences, and the main library.
Aobayama: science, engineering, pharmaceutical sciences and agriculture.
Seiryo: medicine, dentistry and the university hospital, north of the centre.

Katahira: where it began

Katahira is about fifteen minutes on foot from Sendai Station, tucked behind the shopping streets. It is the most historic of the campuses, with brick and tile buildings from the early twentieth century set among tall pines, and it remains the seat of the university's administration.

Two things are worth looking for. The Tohoku University Archives, in a former library building, tells the university's story. And a preserved lecture theatre and a bust recall the Chinese writer Lu Xun, who studied medicine here from 1904, at the medical college that later became part of the university. He left to become a writer, and his time in Sendai appears in one of his best-known essays.

Kawauchi: the first two years

Cross the river and you reach Kawauchi, which stands on part of the former grounds of Sendai Castle. Students of every faculty take their general courses here in their first two years, so this is the liveliest campus during term, full of bicycles, club noticeboards and cafeteria queues.

The northern half holds the lecture buildings and the Centennial Hall, a concert hall also known as Kawauchi Hagi Hall. The southern half has the faculties of arts and letters, law, economics and education, and the main library. The campus is modern rather than picturesque, but it is ringed by trees and by some of the city's museums.

Aobayama: laboratories in the forest

One subway stop further on, Aobayama is the science and engineering campus, later joined by pharmaceutical sciences and agriculture. Its buildings are spread along a ridge among woods, and the newer extension has broad lawns and long views. The university's natural history museum is here, and the botanical garden nearby preserves a patch of forest that was once the protected woodland behind the castle.

Several buildings here were repaired or rebuilt after the earthquake of 2011, and the university has since become a centre for disaster science.

Sendai Castle and the green city

The campuses sit beside the site of Sendai Castle. Little of the castle survives beyond stone walls, but the hilltop has a wide view over the city and the well-known statue of Date Masamune, the warlord who founded Sendai at the start of the seventeenth century, on horseback.

Sendai calls itself the City of Trees. The clearest example is Jozenji-dori, an avenue in the centre shaded by rows of zelkova trees, with a walkway down the middle. Students spend their free time in the covered shopping arcades nearby, and the pine-covered islands of Matsushima Bay are a short train ride away.

Student life

Tohoku is a residential university in a city of manageable size: most students live within a bicycle or subway ride of their campus. The university runs shared residences where Japanese and international students live together, some of them on Aobayama. Clubs and circles matter a great deal, and the university festival is held in autumn.

Most undergraduate teaching is in Japanese. A small number of undergraduate degree programmes, and many more at graduate level, are taught in English; check the language of the programme you're considering.

Visiting

The campus grounds are generally open to walk through, and buildings are for students and staff. The university holds open-campus events for prospective students, typically in summer, and its museums and archives keep their own opening days. Arrangements change from year to year, so check the university's official website before you go.

Getting there and around

To Sendai: the Tohoku Shinkansen from Tokyo takes about an hour and a half on the fastest trains. Sendai Airport is linked to Sendai Station by a direct train.
Subway Tozai Line: from Sendai Station it runs west to Kawauchi and Aobayama stations, each right at its campus, in under ten minutes.
To Katahira: walk from Sendai Station, or use Aoba-dori Ichibancho station on the Tozai Line.
To Seiryo: take the Namboku Line north to Kita-Yobancho.

Katahira, Kawauchi and Aobayama fit into one day: start at Katahira in the morning, take the subway to Aobayama, and walk or ride back down to Kawauchi and the castle site.

Where families usually stay

Around Sendai Station: the widest choice of hotels, with the subway and the Shinkansen on the doorstep.
Ichibancho and Kokubuncho: the central shopping and dining district, between the station and Jozenji-dori, within walking distance of Katahira.
Akiu Onsen: a hot-spring area in the hills west of the city, for families who want to add a traditional inn to the trip.

Practical tips

Sendai is cooler than Tokyo; winters bring some snow, and Aobayama is colder than the centre.
Wear comfortable shoes. The climb between Kawauchi and the castle site is steep.
An IC card such as Suica works on the subway and local trains.
Comparing Japanese universities? See our guides to the University of Tokyo, Kyoto University and Osaka University, and, if you are starting in the capital, where to stay in Tokyo.

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Cover photo: レンコン, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons