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Japan, apparently, gets a 100-km traffic jam every August because of a Buddhist festival

Obon, the mid-August homecoming holiday, regularly produces traffic jams over 50 km long — and historic ones past 100 km. It's the country going home at once.

· 2 min read · By Daichi
Aerial view of a long traffic jam on a Japanese expressway during Obon homecoming season
◇  Aerial view of a long traffic jam on a Japanese expressway during Obon homecoming season

When the country drives home at the same time

Every mid-August, Japan’s expressways generate traffic jams that, on a bad year, exceed 50 km in continuous length — and historically have been clocked past 100 km, end to end. The Tomei, the Chuo, the Tohoku, the Kan-etsu — all of them simultaneously. The cause isn’t an accident. It’s a Buddhist festival.

The fact

Obon (お盆) is Japan’s mid-August festival of the dead, when the spirits of ancestors are believed to return home for a few days. Most workplaces close for around a week — Obon yasumi — and the population executes one of the largest synchronized internal migrations on Earth. NEXCO, the expressway operator, publishes an annual forecast of expected jam lengths; 40–50 km jams are common on the August 11–15 outbound and August 14–17 inbound peaks. Pre-COVID peaks frequently topped 60 km on the Tomei alone, and the all-time records sit above 150 km.

Shinkansen reserved seats sell out weeks ahead, and non-reserved cars routinely run at 150–200% capacity, with passengers standing in the aisles for the four-hour Tokyo–Hakata leg.

Why it works this way

Obon is built on three layered customs. Ancestors’ spirits are welcomed with a small fire (mukaebi), hosted at the family altar, and then sent off again with another fire (okuribi) — the spectacular Kyoto Daimonji on August 16 being the famous public version. To do that properly, you need to be at jikka — the family home — which for most working-age urban Japanese means a multi-hour drive or train ride to a regional prefecture.

Combine that with: roughly the same week off for everyone, school summer holidays, and a road network where most inter-regional traffic funnels through a small number of expressways. The result is the demographic equivalent of pouring a bottle through a straw.

Where to experience it (or avoid it)

  • Avoid driving August 11–17. Expressway jams peak in early morning outbound and late afternoon inbound. NEXCO’s jutai yosō (渋滞予想) page shows expected times by hour.
  • Kyoto Gozan Okuribi (August 16) — the giant kanji-shaped bonfires sending the spirits off. The most photogenic Obon moment in the country.
  • Local bon odori dances — held at neighborhood parks and shrines almost everywhere from early to mid-August. Free, social, and the cultural center of gravity for the holiday.

Closing

I once spent eleven hours covering a four-hour drive from Tokyo to Niigata for Obon. My uncle, when I finally arrived, said, “You should have left earlier.” He had left at 3 a.m. Apparently that’s the only correct answer.

  • Flagship guide: Japan in August — heat, fireworks, festivals, and the week the trains overflow.