Hikarizaka Private High School

The Hikarizaka Private High School is a fictional high school in the fictional town of Hikarizaka in Japan. This is where most of the events of Clannad occur. It is located at the top of a steep hill which students have to climb every morning. This is used during the series as a recurring symbol of the hardships that Tomoya and other characters (especially Nagisa) encounter. It is a typical Japanese high school, with students ranging from 15 to 18 years of age. The grade they belong to can be told by the color of their badge, as noticed by Tomoya early in the story. Green is the color for tenth graders, orange or red for eleventh graders and blue for twelfth graders. This color matches that of the students' indoor shoes. The school has a summer and a winter uniform, both of which can be seen at different times during the story.

The school has at least two buildings, a new one where classes are located, and an old one destined basically to the library and other clubrooms. Fuko Ibuki and Kotomi Ichinose spend most of their time in this building. It also has a gym, a cafeteria with numerous vending machines and numerous courts. Every day at lunchtime, the cafeteria becomes crowded with students trying to get to the bread counter to buy new bread buns. The school offers new bread every now and then, and the most popular ones become quickly sold out. There is also a courtyard between the buildings which students hang around during lunch break.

Hikarizaka Private High School offers sports scholarships, which is the main reason that Sunohara and Tomoya attend it, although both of them quit their respective clubs, and has a special dormitory reserved for these scholarship students who have come from other places of Japan. Some notable clubs seem to be the soccer club, the basketball club and the rugby club. The school also holds many other arts and crafts clubs, although during the story the two clubs of this kind which are most heavily featured are the recently created Drama Club and the Chorus Club.

The school's most important festivity is the Founder's Festival, which takes place during the month of May. During this day, stalls which sell food and other goods are opened around the school and some clubs offer shows and special displays. Even though in the anime it was portrayed as being two different festivals, in the original visual novel there is only one Founder's Festival.

Aside from the main characters who are students during the Clannad storyline, other characters from the series including Misae Sagara and Yusuke Yoshino also attended Hikarizaka Private High School.