From Food Carp to Living Jewels — A Short History

Mutations in food carp in the snowy Niigata mountains became, over two centuries, Japan's most valuable ornamental fish.

In the late Edo period, farmers in the Nijumurago villages — today's Yamakoshi in Nagaoka, Ojiya and Uonuma — kept carp in terraced rice-pond systems as winter protein. Coloured mutations appeared among them, and households began keeping the unusual fish for pleasure.

The modern story turns in 1889, when the prototype of Kohaku was produced at Uchiki in Ojiya. Nishikigoi were presented at the 1914 Taisho Exposition in Tokyo, which carried their fame beyond Niigata, and the names Taisho Sanke and Showa Sanshoku still record the eras that fixed those varieties.

After the Second World War, improved roads, oxygen-bag transport and later air freight turned a mountain hobby into a national and then global culture. Niigata still counts more than 300 producers — the most of any prefecture — and in 2017 Niigata designated nishikigoi its prefectural ornamental fish. In 2022 the variety names and definitions were standardised as a Japanese Agricultural Standard (JAS), the anchor this guide uses for variety names.

Sources: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA — summary in our own words, credit only); All Japan Nishikigoi Promotion Association official; Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) and Finance Ministry trade statistics as published; Japanese Agricultural Standard (JAS) for nishikigoi variety names and definitions (2022); Niigata Prefecture, Ojiya City, Nagaoka City (Yamakoshi) and Nishikigoi no Sato official; Japan National Tourism Organization (JNTO) visitor statistics; USDA APHIS and Australian DAFF official import guidance. Checked 6 November 2026.