Northern California Cherry Blossom Festival Information

Welcome to the Northern California Cherry Blossom Festival®, one of California’s most prominent celebrations of Asian traditions and the biggest on the West coast. Starting in 1968, the festival serves to cultivate the continued alliance between Japan and United States using culture as its bridge. The Northern California Cherry Blossom Festival (NCCBF) is one of California’s most prominent celebrations of Asian traditions. Each year, over 200,000 people attend this dazzling display showcasing the color and grace of the Japanese culture and the diversity of the Japanese American Community. The NCCBF is said to be the second largest festival outside of Washington, D.C. to celebrate the blooming of cherry blossoms; and held at one of three remaining Japantowns in the United States. This two-weekend-long Festival, like the cherry blossom, has come to symbolize spring’s late arrival in the famously fog-shrouded San Francisco. Sakura Matsuri, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) non-profit charitable organization that sponsors the annual NCCBF also known as the San Francisco Cherry Blossom Festival (sfcherryblossom.org), to educate and promote the rich cultural heritage of Japan that is preserved by Northern California Japanese American communities by demonstrating and exhibiting Japanese customs and traditions. The Festival also serves to cultivate the alliance between Japan and United States.