Every place on earth has one thing it’s proudest of. Paris has a tower. Egypt has pyramids. Naha has a rope. 🪢 And not just any rope, folks. A rope so big that Guinness World Records showed up to measure it. Then they came back the next year to measure it again. Then they came back a third time. At some point you have to ask: is this a record, or is Guinness just looking for an excuse to visit Okinawa? And while they were here in 1997, they counted the people too: 15,000 pulling and 275,000 total. Two hundred seventy-five thousand human beings, standing on a highway, on purpose, to pull a rope. Nobody’s winning a car. Nobody’s getting a trophy. They’re pulling it for luck. That’s the whole deal. And somehow it’s the biggest deal on the island. 🏆
A Rope. That’s It. That’s the Event. 🤔
Let’s go over what we’re dealing with here. The Naha Great Tug-of-War goes back to around 1450, when the four old towns of Naha settled their differences the way civilized people should: by grabbing a rope and seeing who’s stronger. No lawyers. No committees. No emails that start with “per my last message.” Just pull.
The rope is 200 meters long, 1.56 meters thick, and weighs about 40 tons. It’s made of straw, and they make a brand-new one every single year. Think about that. Somewhere in Naha there’s a crew whose annual job is “build the world’s largest rope, again.” Hanging off the sides are 280 smaller hand ropes, about 7 meters each, because you can’t wrap your hands around something thicker than your car. 🚗
And here’s my favorite part. The rope comes in two halves: a “male” East rope and a “female” West rope. They get joined in the middle by the kanuchi-bo, a rosewood pin 3.65 meters long and weighing 365 kilograms. So the big ceremony is basically a wedding. Then, the minute they’re joined, half the city grabs one end, half grabs the other, and everybody pulls in opposite directions. Which, if you’ve been to enough weddings, is the most honest ceremony you’ll ever see. 💍
No registration. No tickets. No waivers. Nobody checks your ID. You show up, pick East or West, grab a hand rope, and pull when the people around you pull. When it’s over, everyone tears off a chunk of the rope and takes it home as a good-luck charm for family safety and business prosperity. A crowd of strangers politely taking apart a world record with their bare hands. Only in Okinawa. 🍀
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The Schedule, Day by Day 🗓️
The tug-of-war is the headliner, but it’s really the middle act of a three-day festival (October 10–12, 2026) that stretches from Kokusai Street to Route 58 to Onoyama Park. Sunday’s times come straight from the official Naha Otsunahiki site. Saturday and Monday come from Naha’s tourism announcements. Every time listed is “planned,” which is event-speak for “the weather gets a vote.” Check naha-otsunahiki.org the week of.
Saturday, October 10: The Warm-Up 🌙
5:00 PM to 8:30 PM (planned): the Traditional Arts Night Parade rolls down Kokusai Street, and the Citizens On-Stage program takes over the plaza in front of Palette Kumoji. Eisa drums, traditional dance, local groups doing their thing. This is the night you can still walk around like a normal person, without being carried along by the crowd like a leaf in a river.
11:00 AM to 9:00 PM: the RBC Citizens Festival opens at Onoyama Park (Onoyama Comprehensive Sports Park) with live music, food booths, and game corners. In past years, fireworks have gone up around 8:30 PM each festival night. 🎆
Sunday, October 11: Rope Day 🪢
10:25 AM to 12:55 PM: the Hatagashira Procession (Ufun-nasu-neei) marches down Kokusai Street. Fourteen giant flag poles, seven for the East and seven for the West, each one tall, heavy, decorated, and swaying in the wind, balanced upright by men who apparently decided that regular weightlifting wasn’t dangerous enough. Carrying one of these well is considered a lifetime honor for a Naha man. Most of us get a plaque at work. These guys get a pole and 200,000 witnesses. The marching order changes every year, so there’s no memorizing it. Get to Kokusai Street by about 10:15 if you want to actually see something besides the back of someone’s head.
1:30 PM to 4:10 PM: the Naha Great Tug-of-War, on National Route 58 at the Kumoji Intersection. Before anyone pulls, there’s ceremony: flags, performers standing up on top of the rope, and then the big moment when the two halves get pinned together. Then the whole city leans back. When it’s done, the rope-tearing begins, and that goes on well past 4:10, so don’t book anything tight for the late afternoon. 🍀
11:00 AM to 9:00 PM: the RBC Citizens Festival keeps going at Onoyama Park, with fireworks expected around 8:30 PM based on past years.
Monday, October 12 (Sports Day holiday): The Cool-Down 🎶
11:00 AM to 9:00 PM: the RBC Citizens Festival wraps up at Onoyama Park with more music, food, and games, and fireworks expected around 8:30 PM. It’s a national holiday called Sports Day, which is perfect, because after Sunday your arms will need a day to think about what they did.
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Parking: A Short Chapter 🚗
There is no event parking. The organizers say it plainly: use public transportation.
But, coin parkings are available around Kokusai Dori area. The few coin lots around Kumoji, Kencho-mae, and Makishi fill up early, and the no-parking zones grow on top of that. Driving into downtown Naha on tug-of-war day is a great way to spend the afternoon looking at the rope from inside a traffic jam.
If you absolutely must drive, park far away and ride in. Tedako-Uranishi Station at the end of the Yui Rail line has a park-and-ride lot, and the monorail drops you right downtown without you ever touching Route 58. You can also reserve a spot in advance on a parking app like akippa, but grab it early, because those disappear weeks ahead. And don’t count on the lots at Onoyama Park either. The RBC Citizens Festival crowd gets there first. 🚝
Road Closures to Plan Around 🚧
The 2026 traffic regulation map wasn’t posted at the time of writing, so here’s last year’s pattern as a guide. In 2025, Kokusai Street closed to cars Saturday evening (roughly 5:30 PM to 8:30 PM) for the night parade, and again late Sunday morning into early afternoon for the flag procession. Route 58 between the Izumizaki and Matsuyama intersections closed Sunday from roughly 2:30 PM to 7:00 PM for the tug-of-war. Since the 2026 Sunday program starts about an hour earlier, expect the closures to shift earlier too. City buses get rerouted and run well off schedule, so give yourself extra time, or better yet, take the monorail.
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Getting There 🚝
For the tug-of-war at the Kumoji Intersection, Yui Rail’s Kencho-mae Station is about a two-minute walk. For the flag procession on Kokusai Street, Makishi, Miebashi, and Kencho-mae stations all put you right on the street, and Asahibashi Station is about five minutes on foot. For the RBC Citizens Festival at Onoyama Park, get off at Tsubogawa Station (about three minutes) or Onoyama-koen Station (about five minutes). After the pull, the monorail turns into a very friendly sardine can, so either leave early or stay late and eat something.
The Rules, and Why They Make Sense 🎒
No knives, no scissors, no blades of any kind. Now, you might say, “But everybody takes home a piece of the rope. How am I supposed to cut it?” You’re not. You tear it, with your hands, like the people of 1450 did. They didn’t need a pocketknife and neither do you. No drones either, and no drinking alcohol at the tug-of-war venue, which makes sense when you think about it: 15,000 people pulling 40 tons in opposite directions is exciting enough without anybody adding beer to it. Save the Orion for Onoyama Park.
Drink plenty of water and take breaks between pulls, because October in Okinawa is still summer that forgot to leave. The organizers specifically warn that pulling or watching with small children, while pregnant, or in high heels is dangerous. High heels. At a tug-of-war. On a highway. Somebody tried it, which is why it’s on the list. Wear closed-toe shoes, keep your phone in a front pocket, use both hands on the side ropes, and listen to the staff. The event can change or be canceled for weather, so check the official site before heading out.
Where and When 📅
📍Tug-of-War: Kumoji Intersection, National Route 58, 2-4 Kume, Naha, Okinawa 900-0033
📍Parades: Kokusai Street, Naha
📍RBC Citizens Festival: Onoyama Park, 52 Onoyamacho, Naha
📆 Saturday, October 10, 2026:
Night Parade and Citizens On-Stage, 5:00 PM – 8:30 PM;
RBC Citizens Festival, 11:00 AM – 9:00 PM
📆 Sunday, October 11, 2026:
Hatagashira Procession, 10:25 AM – 12:55 PM;
Naha Great Tug-of-War, 1:30 PM – 4:10 PM;
RBC Citizens Festival, 11:00 AM – 9:00 PM
📆 Monday, October 12, 2026 (holiday):
RBC Citizens Festival, 11:00 AM – 9:00 PM
Why You Should Go Anyway 🙌
If you’re new to Okinawa, whether you’re here for a week or you’ve been stationed here long enough to have a favorite A&W order, this is the one day you’ll see the whole island in one place. Grandmothers, bankers, high school kids, sailors, tourists in aloha shirts with the fold lines still in them, all pulling on the same rope for the same reason: luck, pride, and bragging rights for their side of town. It costs nothing. It’s loud, it’s sweaty, and it has not one but three Guinness certificates. You don’t sit in a seat and watch it. You get your hands on it. And you go home with a piece of it hanging by your front door, which is more than you can say for most souvenirs.
So put October 10–12 on your calendar right now, with a big circle around Sunday afternoon. And if you need something to do in the meantime, head over to https://www.okisocial.com/category/events/ for more local events happening this week.
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Disclaimer
⚠️Disclaimer: Our passion for supporting local businesses drives us to share information about events in the Okinawa area. Please note that Oki Social is not responsible for hosting this event. It’s important to be aware that the event’s host reserves the right to make changes or even cancel the event without prior notice. Some photos and videos may come from various sources on the internet, whether official or unofficial. It is possible that some photos and videos may have been taken from the same event in previous occurrences.
