Onsen in Kansai

An index of 95 hot springs across Kansai, arranged by prefecture. Choose a name to open its page.

Mie · 17

• Ise Shima Kamishiro Onsen
• Nansei Sakurayama Onsen The Mie Peninsula holds its pleasures quietly.
• Kii Nagashima Furusato Onsen There is a kind of bath that does not announce itself.
• Tado Onsen The water here did not exist, in any practical sense, until 2004.
• Oyamada Onsen
• Oku-Shima Onsen
• Oku Kahada-kyo Onsen The bus from Matsusaka takes an hour and a half, winding up into the mountains of Mie Prefecture as the valley deepens a
• Arajima Onsen
• Arikuji Onsen
• Kisosaki Onsen There is a particular kind of place that exists in memory more than on any map — a place that once drew ordinary people
• Motoura Onsen The bay at Motoura sits quietly along the Ikura coast, just beyond Toba, where the water is shallow enough for oyster fa
• Kuwana Onsen
• Sakakibara Onsen The water here is alkaline and simple — which is to say, it does its work without announcing itself.
• Hamajima Onsen The waters here are relatively young, as hot springs go.
• Yunoyama Onsen The waters here are alkaline radium springs, a phrase that sounds almost clinical until you lower yourself into them alo
• Toba Kohama Onsen The Shima Peninsula is known for its coastline, its pearls, its particular quality of light over the sea.
• Toba Onsen

Shiga · 9

• Takarabune Onsen There is just the one inn here.
• Onoe Onsen Along the northern shore of Lake Biwa, where the water stretches wide enough to suggest an inland sea, there is a small
• Hira Shofuku Onsen There is something unusual about a hot spring that did not exist twenty years ago.
• Ogoto Onsen
• Biwako Onsen There is something worth sitting with in the fact that a hot spring can simply cease to exist.
• Makino Shiratani Onsen The lake comes first — or rather, the sense of it.
• Nagahama Taiko Onsen Nagahama sits quietly along the eastern shore of Lake Biwa, a castle town that carries its history without insisting upo
• Ogoto Onsen (Otsu City)
• Sugaya Onsen At the southern foot of Mount Kogaya, in the lake-country of northern Shiga, there is a single inn.

Kyoto · 11

• Kumi no Hama Onsen The Kyoto that most visitors know is a city of temples and crowds, of polished stone and careful ritual.
• Kumihama Seaside Onsen Kumihama Bay sits quietly along the northern edge of Kyoto Prefecture, far from the city that shares its name.
• Kyoto Takenosatoson Onsen There is a particular kind of surprise in finding thermal water rising in the middle of a residential district.
• Yuhigaura Onsen The water here is young, as onsen histories go.
• Ohara Onsen The bus from Kyoto takes nearly an hour, winding north through the city's edge and into a quieter register of hills and
• Amanohashidate Onsen The waters here are young.
• Oku-Ine Onsen The road from Amanohashidate takes the better part of an hour, winding along the coast until the Sea of Japan opens wide
• Ukawa Onsen
• Kizu Onsen They say a white heron led the monk Gyōki to these waters in the Nara period, and whether or not one believes the story,
• Rurikei Onsen The mountains of Tanba rise quietly between Osaka and Kyoto, and somewhere in that fold of forest and valley, Rurikei si
• Ayabe Onsen Ayabe sits in the southern reaches of Kyoto Prefecture, inland from the coast, far enough from the old capital that few

Osaka · 6

• Fushio Onsen Thirty minutes from the center of Osaka, the city gradually releases its hold.
• Amami Onsen
• Okumizuma Onsen
• Yamanakadani Onsen There is a station called Yamanakadani on the JR Hanwa Line, a few stops before the border with Wakayama Prefecture.
• Settsukyō Onsen Osaka does not readily suggest gorges or silence.
• Inunakiyama Onsen There is a particular quality of quiet that belongs to places long used for purposes other than leisure.

Hyogo · 24

• Ichinomiya Onsen (Shiso)
• Nanakama Onsen The water here was found in 1955, and the discovery was not incidental.
• Satsu Onsen The waters at Satsu are saline — chloride springs that settle into the body with a particular weight, the kind associate
• Amaru Onsen
• Rokko Nunobiki Onsen (Kobe)
• Kakogawa Onsen (Kakogawa)
• Hachikita Onsen (Kami-cho)
• Yoshikawa Onsen (Miki)
• Kinosaki Onsen The waters here have been known since before the Heian period — a lineage stretching back to at least 629 by one foundin
• Kinosaki Onsen (Toyooka)
• Shiota Onsen (Himeji)
• Taisanji Onsen (Kobe)
• Takarazuka Onsen (Takarazuka)
• Ojiro (Ojiro Onsen) (Kami-cho)
• Arima Onsen What strikes you first is not the history — though it runs deeper here than almost anywhere in Japan — but the color.
• Arima Onsen (Kobe)
• Muraoka Onsen (Kami-cho)
• Shibayama Onsen The San'in Main Line deposits you at Shibayama Station, and within a single minute of walking you are already inside the
• Hamasaka Onsen The train from the south takes its time reaching Hamasaka.
• Yofudo Onsen (Asago)
• Silk Onsen (Toyooka)
• Konda Yakushi Onsen (Tanba-Sasayama)
• Ako Onsen
• Kasumi Onsen Kasumi sits just inland from its own coastline, close enough to the sea that the smell of salt and diesel finds its way

Nara · 11

• Kamikitayama Onsen The Kitayama River moves through this part of Nara Prefecture with a quiet insistence, carving its way through the deep
• Kamiyu Onsen Deep in Totsukawa village, where the road narrows and the river takes over as the dominant fact of the landscape, Kamiyu
• Shigisan Onsen The mountain called Shigisan sits in the western ranges of Nara Prefecture, close enough to the ancient corridors of Hor
• Shionoha Onsen
• Totsukawa Onsen
• Yoshino Onsen The train from Kintetsu's Yoshino line deposits you at the foot of a mountain that has absorbed centuries of human atten
• Tenokawa Onsen
• Okukōraku Onsen There is a particular kind of silence that gathers around a place that once drew people in and no longer does.
• Dorogawa Onsen To reach Dorogawa, you ride a bus for about an hour from Shimoichi-guchi Station, climbing steadily into the mountains o
• Takasumi Onsen
• Yahata Onsen

Wakayama · 17

• Kamiono Onsen The bus from Kii-Tanabe follows the road inland, leaving the coast behind as the Kii Peninsula folds into itself.
• Futagawa Onsen The road that follows the Aridagawa river into the hills of Wakayama Prefecture grows quieter the further you go from th
• Kada Awashima Onsen The Kinoo Strait runs narrow here, between the Kii Peninsula and Awaji Island, and the waters of Kada Awashima sit at it
• Nanki Katsuura Onsen The approach is longer than you might expect.
• Nanki Shirahama Onsen, Tsubaki Onsen
• Natsuyama Natusa Onsen
• Oku-Kumano Onsen The road into Nakahechi takes you deeper into the Kumano mountains than you expect.
• Tsukinose Onsen The Kii Peninsula does not give itself up easily.
• Wataze Onsen The valley of the Shimura River is wide and unhurried, and Wataze sits within it with the quiet assurance of a place tha
• Yunomine Onsen The valley is narrow, and so is the road into it.
• Yugawa Onsen The waters here are sulfurous and simple — tanjun iōsen, the plainest designation in Japanese balneology, which is perha
• Yunohana Onsen There is a particular kind of silence that belongs only to places that once held warmth and no longer do.
• Kumano Hongu Onsen
• Shirahama Onsen
• Jinzu Onsen In Kinokawa, a city whose name simply means "river of Kii," there is a small onsen that draws visitors not for scenery o
• Kishu Kuroshio Onsen The Kii Peninsula tapers southward into the Pacific, and near its northern edge, where the coast flattens and the city o
• Ryujin Onsen The road into Ryujin takes its time.