Sapporo Snow Festival (Sapporo Yuki Matsuri)

Held across three venues in Sapporo every February, this week-long festival grew from a schoolteacher's idea in the 1950s to reframe the city's heavy snowfall as something to celebrate rather than endure. At Odori Park, large-scale snow sculptures stretch for 12 city blocks, some requiring scaffolding and truckloads of snow and recreating famous buildings at near life-size scale. Susukino features ice sculptures with evening illumination, while the Tsudome site offers snow activities for families. Sapporo receives an average of 485 centimeters of snow each year, and the festival draws millions of visitors to the city.