Ojiya & Nishikigoi no Sato
Ojiya City's public koi museum — indoor viewing ponds, a Japanese garden pond, and some forty varieties on display.
| Facility | Nishikigoi no Sato, Ojiya City, Niigata — public facility, opened October 1989 |
|---|---|
| Display | Indoor viewing hall pond about 268 sq m with about 150 fish and about 40 varieties (re-check at visit; counts vary by source) |
| Garden | Japanese garden about 1,934 sq m with a pond holding about 120 fish |
| Access | Ojiya is about 2 hours from Tokyo by Joetsu Shinkansen and local connection (city official guidance) |
Nishikigoi no Sato — the Village of Nishikigoi — is the single best first stop for a visitor: a municipal facility in the birthplace city where dozens of varieties can be compared in one indoor hall, in any weather, with the fish close below glass-calm water.
Use it as a field classroom. Work the variety hub of this guide as you walk: find a Kohaku, separate a Sanke from a Showa, spot a Tancho, a Shusui's scale-line and a platinum Ogon's shine. The garden pond outside shows the same fish at landscape scale.
Counts of fish and varieties differ between sources, so this page carries ranges and a check date rather than a single brittle number — the facility's own board on the day is the final word.
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.