"Furui Machinami" [Takayama Historical District], at the central area of Takayama City is known for well-preserved castle town and merchant town, with restaurants and souvenir stores which are converted from machiya [traditional Japanese houses dating back to the Edo Era].
Hida Takayama has been awarded "Three-star" as a must-see tourist destination in the "Michelin Voyage Pratique Japon".

The secret techniques of local artisans of Hida adds charm to Sanmachi Street. Drinking water flowing beneath the traditional wooden low facades, sake breweries hanging the "saka-bayashi" [fir leaves and tips shaped into a ball] at the doors, and the streets lined with doors of the traditional wooden townhouses and "noren" [curtains of long-established stores]. Chidori [checked] lattice, a traditional technique unique to Takayama, is made by cutting multiple grooves evenly into a single square-shaped piece of wood to form the latticework, then putting the pieces together like a puzzle.

Takayama City has been the central city of Hida region traditionally, and has merged with nine neighboring towns and villages as part of a large-scale municipal restructuring in 2005. The city of Takayama became almost equal to the entire Tokyo Metropolitan in area, and is now the largest city in Japan, with area of 2177.61K㎡.
After the merger, Takayama City crosses the Gifu Prefecture from east to west, bordering Nagano and Toyama Prefectures to the east and Ishikawa and Fukui Prefectures to the west, stretching approximately 81 Km from east to west and 55 Km from north to south. The Hida Mountains rise to the east of the city and the Ryohaku Mountains to the west, the central city is surrounded by steep mountains, located in the Takayama Basin.
Designated as an International Conference and Tourist City, Takayama is a popular tourist destination with traditional townscape, numerous ski resorts and onsen (hot springs), so that numbers of tourists from the Nagoya metropolitan and Osaka metropolitan areas, and more recently the Tokyo metropolitan area and abroad increases every year.

The harvest of Takayama City is mostly consisted of highland vegetables, such as Hida tomatoes and spinach, which take advantage of the cool climate prevalent in the region. The area is also famous for the specialty vegetables, such as Yususso pumpkins, Akishima sage, Hida single thick leeks, and Hida red turnips. The fresh vegetables grown with great care of the locals are sold by the locals at the Miyagawa Morning Market. Thick and crooked cucumbers, lively leaves, taut daikon radishes and carrots with mud still clinging, bright red turnips, apples, tomatoes, etc., are on display for sale, and it is impressive to see vegetables in their natural state, which is something unlikely to be seen at the supermarkets in the urban area.