University of Niigata Prefecture

The University of Niigata Prefecture (or Niigata Kenritsu Daigaku) was set up in 2009 in Higashi-ku, Niigata, a port city of Honshu, Japan’s main island.

It comprises three faculties and a graduate school. These include the faculty of international studies and regional development; the faculty of human life studies (department of child studies, department of health and nutrition), the faculty of international economic studies and graduate school of international studies and regional development, which was opened most recently in 2015.

The University of Niigata Prefecture is a public university which welcomes approximately 360 undergraduate students a year. It aims to follow the principles of developing an international perspective with an emphasis on the region and focus on developing human qualities.

The university has a range of extracurricular activities, including sports like badminton, kendo, cheersa (cheerleading), itasa (skateboarding/snowboarding), lacrosse and soccer. There are also cultural societies like Yururi (Niigata strolling), Makuru (board games), painting, puppet theatre and tea ceremony.

Niigata plays an important role as a transportation hub to the rest of the country and has an international airport, seaport, Shinkansen high-speed rail system and an express-way network. The prefecture sees some of Japan’s heaviest snowfall, meaning it attracts winter sports fans and is also known for the hot springs all over the region. It is especially known for the hot springs in the Echigo Yuzawa area, which is where the Japanese novelist Yasunari Kawabata set "Snow Country," for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.