The Snow Festival in Sapporo, Japan, amazes tourists from all over the world: fantastic photos

The Sapporo Snow Festival, an annual celebration now in its 74th year, is in full swing.

Located at three main venues in the city of Sapporo on the island of Hokkaido - Odori Park, Susukino, and Tsudome - the free-to-enter snow spectacle is the most popular winter event in Japan, attracting two million visitors each year, as reported by the Daily Mail.

In total, the exhibition features 196 impressive snow and ice sculptures - from fairy-tale castles to galloping thoroughbreds, from smiling dinosaurs to manga characters.

The centerpieces of the festival are five large-scale snow sculptures on the grounds of Odori, each of which stands between 12 meters (39 feet) and 15 meters (49 feet) tall, built by the Japan Ground Self-Defense Forces and hundreds of volunteers.

The giant glacial drawings, which took 28 days to create, include a diorama of Asirpa and Saichi Sugimoto, characters from the hit manga show Golden Kamuy, set in Hokkaido; Neuschwanstein Castle, also known as the Swan Castle, a perfect Bavarian palace like in a fairy tale; the Thoroughbred Galloping to Glory; Sapporo Old Railway Station, and Hokkaido Baseball Park.

Susokino's Ice World features 60 ice sculptures. This is the venue for the 50th International Snow Sculpture Competition, where teams from around the world create frosty ice creations that reflect the spirit of a nation.

Fragments are cut out during the festival, giving visitors the opportunity to see how these wonders are brought to brilliant life. This year, teams from South Korea, the United States, Indonesia, Lithuania, Mongolia, Poland, Portland, Singapore, and Thailand participated.

Earlier, TravelWise told you about 5 cities in Japan other than Tokyo that are worthy of tourists' attention.