A chapter of Japan
Kochi
34 towns and villages, listed not by rank but as they are — places you may not have met yet.
EVENTFestivals & gatherings
Event
I
Ichijo Taisai
A memory of people who fled here from the capital, checked e…
Event
A
Akiba Matsuri (Niyodogawa)
Two hundred people spend a whole day walking a mountain path.
Event
Y
Yosakoi Festival
The naruko clappers rattle in the hand.
Event
K
Kochi Sunday Market
Every Sunday morning, the boulevard leading to Kochi Castle…
Event
S
Shimanto River Canoe Experience
The Shimanto is called Japan's last truly clear river, and t…
Event
T
Tosa Washi: Making Paper at the Source of Japan's Finest
Tosa washi is made from the water of the Niyodo River system…
Event
T
Tosa Shimizu: A Few Days in the Life of a Fisherman
The fishing boats leave before dawn.
Event
T
Tosa Kochi Fireworks Festival
This is the herald of the Yosakoi.
Event
K
Lunar Aug 14–15 (Sep–Oct)
Kure Hachimangu Autumn Festival
At midnight, it leaves the house.
Event
B
Peak color early to late November
Befu-kyo
Kami city gives the viewing period at Befu-kyo as early to l…
ISLANDThe islands
Island
沖
沖の島
The ferry from Katashima Port takes the better part of an hour, and by the time the granite cliffs come into view, the mainland feels much further than the distance traveled.
Island
鵜
鵜来島
The ferry leaves Katashima Port twice a day, in the early morning and the middle of the afternoon, and there is no other way on or off.
ONSENHot springs
TOWNSAll municipalities
Town
a
akishi
The洞窟 at Ioki cuts back into a hillside of sea-formed rock, its walls draped in ferns — some forty species catalogued as a natural monument.
Town
i
inochou
Paper mulberry fiber, water, and patience — these are the materials that shaped Ino-cho long before it became a commuter town beside Kochi City.
Town
u
umajimura
Yuzu grows here because almost nothing else can.
Town
o
ookawamura
The road into Okawa-mura narrows as the mountains close in, the Yoshino River audible before it is visible.
Town
o
ootsukichou
The road into Otsuki follows the coastline closely enough that you can smell the Pacific before you see it.
Town
o
ootoyochou
The forest begins almost immediately after the train slows into Ōtaguchi Station — cedar pressing close on both sides, the air noticeably cooler, the light filtered into something thin and green.
Town
o
ochichou
Three rivers meet in the mountains of Kochi's interior — the Niyodo, the Sakaoré, and the Yanase — and the confluence gives Ochi-cho its particular geography: wide, green, and quietly hemmed in by ridgelines.
Town
k
kamishi
Forests cover most of Kami City's land — cedar and cypress pressing close to the roads, the air carrying resin and river-damp in equal measure.
Town
k
kitagawamura
The scent of yuzu moves through Kitagawa-mura before anything else announces it — sharp, citric, present in the air near the processing sheds and in the gift boxes stacked at roadside stops.
Town
k
kuroshiochou
The black pine forest at Irino Matsubara runs the full length of the coast, a dense windbreak planted centuries ago by a retainer of the warlord Chōsokabe.
Town
g
geiseimura
The two stations of the Tosa Kuroshio Railway's Gomen-Nahari Line — Nishiwake and Washoku — mark the entry points into Geisei, a village that runs narrow from mountain ridge to shoreline along Tosa Bay.
Town
k
kouchishi
The trams of とさでん交通 run along streets wide enough to feel unhurried, stopping near market stalls where vendors have been laying out vegetables since before most cities wake.
Town
k
kounanshi
The ごめん・なはり line runs close to the Tosa coastline, and by the time the train slows into あかおか station, the smell of salt is already present.
Town
s
sakawachou
The rice fields along the Yanase River sit quietly in the basin, ringed by the slopes of Bandan-mori and the other hills that press close on every side.
Town
s
shimantoshi
The grid of streets in central Shimanto City was not laid out by accident.
Town
s
shimantochou
Colorful carp streamers cross the Shimanto River each spring, strung bank to bank above the current — not as spectacle, but as a fixture of the calendar, the way school sports days are.
Town
s
sukumoshi
The ferry moves out through Sukumo Bay in the early morning, and the water is almost flat.
Town
s
susakishi
The smell of the port arrives before the town does — salt, fish, the particular heaviness of an active wharf.
Town
t
tanochou
Salt dries on flat beds close to the water's edge, and the smell of the sea is never far from the main street.
Town
t
tsunochou
The road into Tsuno-cho climbs through cedar and broadleaf forest until the trees thin and the ground opens into the limestone plateau of Shikoku Karst.
Town
t
touyouchou
The road comes in along the coast, pressed between the Pacific and the ridgeline, with almost no flat ground to spare.
Town
t
tosashi
Light falls on Tosa-shi with unusual insistence — the kind of steady, pressing sunlight that makes shadows sharp even in winter.
Town
t
tosashimizushi
The road to Ashizuri-misaki runs without a train line or expressway to ease the approach — just prefecture road and coast, the Pacific opening up on one side, forested ridges pressing in on the other.
Town
t
tosachou
Rain falls heavily in this part of the Shikoku Mountains — the watershed that feeds the island's rivers begins somewhere in these forested ridges.
Town
n
nakatosachou
The smell of grilled fish reaches you before the market does.
Town
n
naharichou
The terminal station of the Gomen-Nahari Line sits at the edge of things — the rails end here, and beyond them the land slopes quickly toward Tosa Bay.
Town
n
nankokushi
Planes descend over rice paddies on the approach to Kōchi Airport — the one named, uniquely in Japan, for Sakamoto Ryōma — and already the landscape signals something layered.
Town
n
niyodogawachou
The Niyodogawa runs west to east through a valley so enclosed by forest that the sky appears as a narrow strip above the ridgeline.
Town
h
hidakamura
The Niyodo River feeds into a basin where tomatoes grow dense and low, their greenhouse rows stretching between mountain ridges that close in from both north and south.
Town
m
miharamura
The bus from Sukumo city climbs into the hills and the road narrows almost immediately, the lowland coast replaced by terraced slopes and the sound of water.
Town
m
murotoshi
The wave-sound at Mikurado-gawa — a sea cave eaten into the rock at Muroto-zaki — is recorded among Japan's hundred notable soundscapes.
Town
m
motoyamachou
The Yoshino River runs east through the center of Motoyama-cho, carving a narrow band of flat land between mountain walls that rise on both sides.
Town
y
yasudachou
The valley narrows quickly once the train pulls away from the coast.
Town
y
yusuharachou
Clouds sit in the valleys before the roads do.