Officials from Gettysburg’s sister city, Sekigahara (seck-ee-GUH-hahr-uh), Japan, spent time this week visiting with officials from the National Park Service, Gettyburg Borough, and economic development and tourism agencies in a cultural exchange of ideas and programs.
The team is working toward a World Battlefield Summit planned for late 2025 that will include three of the world’s most well known battlefields, Gettysburg, USA, Waterloo, Belgium, and Sekigahara, Japan.
A delegation from Sekigahara visited Gettysburg in 2016 to solidify the current sister city agreement, with Gettysburg and Waterloo becoming members of an ancient battlefield collaboration.
In 2016, the town was preparing to open its new Gifu Sekigahara Battlefield Museum. The museum is dedicated to telling the story of the Sekigahara Battle that took place in 1600, ending a one-hundred-year-long civil war in Japan that brought peace for another 265 years. Later in 2016, a delegation from Gettysburg, including Borough Manager Charles Gable, attended the ceremony commemorating the battle and signed the Sister City pact.
The delegation was then and today is still eager to learn from Gettysburg how to effectively present a National Civil War Battlefield and attract visitors to it based on our experience as a park and borough.
Featured image by Jim Bargas.
My wife would love to meet the group. She is from Japan.