Hyogo

Hyogo has 78 onsen areas and 443 springs (Ministry of the Environment, FY2024), and with more than 4.7 million overnight stays a year it ranks seventh in Japan. Arima, one of Japan's three oldest spas, sits in the hills behind Kobe, while on the Sea of Japan side the Tajima region has Kinosaki with its seven public baths and Yumura where the Arayu spring gushes at 98°C. Spas with strong personalities stretch from the Inland Sea to the Sea of Japan.

Main onsen areas

Most spas lie in Tajima on the Sea of Japan side: Kinosaki in Toyooka, and Yumura, Hamasaka and Shichikama in Shin-onsen. Arima is in Kobe's Kita ward, Takarazuka and Takedao are in the hills between Osaka and Kobe, Harima has Shiota near Himeji and Ako-Misaki on the coast, and Awaji Island has Sumoto.

Characteristic spring types

Chloride springs are the most common in our records, followed by simple and radon springs. Arima has two waters: the brown 'gold' spring, thick with iron and salt, and the clear 'silver' spring with carbon dioxide and radon. Kinosaki is a sodium-calcium chloride spring, and Yumura's Arayu gushes out at 98°C and 470 litres a minute.

Reachable by public transport

For Arima, take the subway from Sannomiya to Tanigami and change to the Kobe Electric Railway; it is about 30 minutes to Arima-onsen, or about an hour from Osaka, and highway buses run from Shin-Kobe and Osaka. Kinosaki is walkable from Kinosaki-onsen Station on the JR San'in Line, about 2 h 20 min by limited express from Kyoto or 2 h 40 min from Osaka. Yumura is about 25 minutes by Zentan bus from JR Hamasaka, or about 3 hours by highway bus from Osaka and Kobe.

For solo travellers

Kinosaki's bath-hopping is easy alone, with plenty of eateries and cafes between the station and the baths. Arima's two public baths, Kin-no-yu and Gin-no-yu, are just as easy for a solo visitor.

Food & culture

Kinosaki calls an inn's bath the 'inner bath' and the town's bathhouses the 'outer baths', and guests stroll out to them in yukata and wooden sandals. After the 1925 Kita-Tajima earthquake the town rebuilt around three-storey wooden inns and its bathhouses, and it is the setting of Shiga Naoya's story 'At Kinosaki'. Toyotomi Hideyoshi visited Arima nine times, and remains of his bath palace can be seen at the Taiko-no-Yudonokan. Yumura is the town of the 1981 NHK drama 'Yumechiyo Nikki', where you can boil eggs and vegetables in the Arayu and try Tajima beef.