JAPAN
Japan
From Kyoto’s thousand-year-old festivals to Hokkaido’s flower fields, discover the Japanese respect for manners, seasons and the gods.
City guides
Start with a city
Every city guide has a timeline, stories of local figures, must-see sights, festivals and local etiquette.
東京 Tokyo
Tokyo
11 places
From the fishing village of Edo to a world city: old temples, neon and working-class shitamachi in one city
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京都 Kyoto
Kyoto
9 places
An imperial capital for over a thousand years: temples, machiya and festivals are the best textbook on Japan
大阪 Osaka
Osaka
7 places
City of merchants and 'Japan's kitchen': eating, shopping and laughing are louder here than anywhere
奈良 Nara
Nara
2 places
Japan's first permanent capital: the Great Buddha, sacred deer and the end of the Silk Road
鎌倉 Kamakura
Kamakura
4 places
The first samurai capital: the Great Buddha, old temples and the Shōnan coast
広島 Hiroshima
Hiroshima
4 places
A city of peace reborn from ruins, and Miyajima out at sea
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福岡 Fukuoka
Fukuoka
4 places
A thousand-year-old port facing Asia: yatai, tonkotsu ramen and the god of learning
長崎 Nagasaki
Nagasaki
3 places
Japan's only window on the West during national seclusion: Dejima, churches and prayers for peace
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金沢 Kanazawa
Kanazawa
2 places
Castle town of the million-koku Kaga domain: a famous garden, teahouse districts and gold leaf
札幌 Sapporo
Sapporo
2 places
A northern new town laid out on Kyoto's grid: the Snow Festival, beer and miso ramen
仙台 Sendai
Sendai
2 places
The 'City of Trees' built by the One-Eyed Dragon, Date Masamune
函館 Hakodate
Hakodate
1 places
One of Japan's first open ports: Western-style slopes, a star fort and a million-dollar night view
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Oirase Stream
Fourteen kilometres of moss and waterfalls: a poem walked upstream through virgin forest
Adachi Museum of Art
Ranked 'Japan's number-one garden' for twenty-three years running: a living landscape scroll
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Shimonada Station
An unstaffed little station facing the Iyo Sea: waiting here for a tangerine-coloured dusk
Mishaka Pond
The model for Higashiyama Kaii's 'Green Echo': fresh green reflected in an acidic pond
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Kashiwajima
'Boats floating in the air': a hidden sea in Shikoku as clear as Okinawa's
Iya Valley and the Vine Bridge
One of Japan's three great hidden regions: crossing a swaying vine bridge into the legend of the fleeing Heike
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Takachiho Gorge
Columnar joints in the land of myth: rowing a boat to gaze up at Manai Falls
Tomonoura
The harbour that inspired Hayao Miyazaki: the jōyatō lantern of an Edo-period 'tide-waiting port'
Nyūtō Onsen
A tour of seven hot springs: milky secret baths under thatched roofs
Tamaki Shrine
'You can't get there unless the gods call you': an ancient World Heritage shrine above a sea of clouds
Fukiya Furusato Village
Birthplace of 'Japan Red': a copper-mining town dyed red with bengara
Iwami Ginzan Silver Mine
The silver silence of a World Heritage Site: cycling through a street of samurai residences
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Geibikei Gorge
In the boatman's song: a river trip through one of Japan's 100 landscapes
Oze
Wetlands of skunk cabbage: walking the boardwalks into the birthplace of Japanese nature conservation
Yakushima
The thousand years of the Jōmon Sugi: meeting 'Princess Mononoke' in a moss forest