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
Akihabara Electric Town
An 'Electric Town' that 'changed careers' from post-war electrical black market to otaku mecca — the spiritual homeland of anime and manga devot…
Yokohama Chinatown
With more than 160 years of history, the largest Chinatown in Japan and Asia, where ten gates hold up a 'little China'. Chinese compradors who c…
Yokohama Red Brick Warehouse
Bonded warehouses from the end of the Meiji era reborn as Minato Mirai's most romantic cultural and shopping landmark. Two red-brick buildings s…
Great Buddha of Kamakura
A giant bronze Buddha that has sat in the open air for more than 700 years — the second-largest Buddha statue in Japan. 11.3 m tall and weighing…
Hase-dera, Kamakura
A 'temple of flowers' facing Sagami Bay, enshrining a 9.18-m Eleven-Headed Kannon. In early summer more than 40 varieties of hydrangea cascade d…
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Enoshima
A sacred island in Sagami Bay, born of the legend of 'the heavenly maiden and the five-headed dragon', with shrines, gardens, a lighthouse, cave…
Ameyoko, Ueno
A downtown Tokyo 'bazaar' that grew out of the post-war black market: 400 shops squeezed under the elevated railway make a street-life symphony.…
Ōdōri Park, Sapporo
A 1.5-km 'green carpet' running through the city centre, the grand stage of Sapporo's festivals all year round. Laid out in 1871 as a firebreak,…
Mount Kōya (Kōyasan)
The sacred home of Shingon esoteric Buddhism founded by Kōbō Daishi Kūkai: the whole mountain is a temple, and nights in temple lodgings and the…
Kumano Nachi Taisha
A site of primal faith where the waterfall itself is the divine body: Japan's highest single-drop waterfall at 133 m, framed with a vermilion th…
Kumamoto Castle
One of Japan's three great castles, built by Katō Kiyomasa: the sharp curve of its 'musha-gaeshi' stone walls, and a keep reborn after the earth…
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Nagoya Castle
The 'pinnacle of early-modern castles', ordered built by Tokugawa Ieyasu in 1610: golden shachihoko gleam against the sky, and the painted panel…
Hanamikōji, Gion
A stone-paved geisha district where geiko and maiko brush past, the 'miyabi' (refined elegance) in the glow of machiya lanterns asks every trave…
Nishiki Market
Four hundred years as 'Kyoto's Kitchen': 390 m of arcade packed with Kyoto vegetables, tamagoyaki and the calls of old shops — a living museum o…
Dazaifu Tenmangū
Where Sugawara no Michizane, god of learning, rests in peace: the legend of the flying plum and 6,000 plum trees weave a thousand years of cultu…
Glover Garden
The former home of the Scottish merchant Glover looks down over Nagasaki harbour, its group of exotic Western houses telling stories of Japan's …
Sakurajima
An island living alongside an active volcano, just 15 minutes by ferry, where volcanic ash nourishes giant Sakurajima daikon weighing up to 45 k…
Yufuin Onsen
A rural hot-spring village at the foot of Mount Yufu, with morning mist on Lake Kinrin and the shops of Yunotsubo Kaidō — the number-one place t…