Yamagata, Japan

Capital City: Yamagata
Closest Airport: Yamagata Airport
Population: 1,223,000
Resort Area: Zao Mountains
Snow Season: Nov - April
Main Language: Japanese
Currency: Yen

Yamagata Prefecture offers up a variety of resorts for the global snow-rider.

If you like uncrowded slopes there are a couple of decent small resorts. More extensive terrain comes at a cost - crowding can be a problem at the larger commercial resorts and accessibility's not always as good as it could be.

Still, with 9000 metre runs and big terrain parks, there's a lot to recommend Yamagata, especially mid-winter. During February the prefecture's blessed with an average of over 3 metres of nature's finest white stuff.