Explore cities →
Home › Asia › 🇯🇵 Japan
🇯🇵

Japan

13 city guides · Asia

Cities in Japan (13)

Asia
🇯🇵 Japan

Chiba

Chiba is a city of 972,000 people in Chiba Prefecture, immediately east of Tokyo on Tokyo Bay — home to Makuhari Messe (Japan's largest convention center), the Chiba Marine Stadium, and most importantly, Tokyo Disneyland and DisneySea (both technically in Urayasu city, Chiba Prefecture, not Tokyo). Chiba city itself is a modern Japanese city with a pleasant downtown (Chiba-Minato harbour, the Makuhari New City development) and the regional museum and castle. The prefecture's major attraction for visitors is the Naritasan Shinshoji Temple (in Narita city, 40km from Chiba city — the country's most popular Buddhist pilgrimage site outside Kyoto, receiving 12 million visitors annually, with a vast temple complex of vermillion pagodas, incense-wreathed main halls, and 300-year-old market street leading to the gate). Choshi (on the Pacific coast, 70km from Chiba) is famous for soy sauce production (the Yamasa and Higeta breweries have been fermenting soy sauce in massive wooden barrels since the 17th century) and for the dramatic Inubosaki lighthouse on the easternmost point of the Kanto Plain. Best months: March–May (cherry blossoms, moderate temperatures) and October–November.

📅 3-day itinerary →
Asia
🇯🇵 Japan

Fukuoka

Fukuoka (福岡 — the largest city on the island of Kyushu, 1.6 million people in a city that regularly wins "most liveable city in Japan" surveys and consistently ranks highly in quality of life assessments worldwide) is the gateway city between Japan and the rest of Asia — closer to Seoul (240km) than to Tokyo (880km), and historically a trading city that absorbed Korean, Chinese and Southeast Asian influences before transmitting them to the Japanese archipelago. Fukuoka is where Buddhism entered Japan (via a monk who arrived from China in 1191 and founded the first Zen temple in Japan here — Shōfuku-ji). The city is famous throughout Japan for three things: its food (Hakata ramen — the rich, cloudy tonkotsu pork bone broth ramen that originated in Fukuoka in 1937 and became the most influential regional ramen style in the world; mentaiko — the spiced pollack roe that is a Fukuoka specialty eaten on rice, in pasta, in onigiri; and the yatai (屋台 — the open-air food stalls that set up each evening in the Nakasu and Tenjin areas, the last surviving yatai culture in Japan), its excellent festivals (the Hakata Gion Yamakasa — the most famous matsuri in Kyushu, July), and the Dazaifu Tenman-gu (the most important Shinto shrine in Kyushu, dedicated to the god of learning).

📅 3-day itinerary →
Asia
🇯🇵 Japan

Hiroshima

Hiroshima is the largest city in the Chūgoku region of western Japan — 1.2 million people on the Ōta River delta, spreading across six river channels into Hiroshima Bay. On August 6, 1945 at 08:15, the United States Army Air Forces dropped the first nuclear weapon used in warfare (Little Boy — a uranium-235 gun-type bomb, equivalent to 15 kilotons of TNT) directly above the Shima Hospital, 600 metres from the Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall; the explosion instantly killed 70,000–80,000 people, destroyed 90% of the city's buildings, and resulted in approximately 140,000 total deaths by December 1945. The A-Bomb Dome (Genbaku Dōmu — the Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall, the only building near the hypocenter to retain its structural form, albeit devastated — now a UNESCO World Heritage Site (1996)) and the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum (Heiwa Kinen Shiryōkan) are the central sites of a city that rebuilt itself from nothing within a decade and has since dedicated itself to nuclear abolition. Hiroshima is also the gateway to Miyajima (Itsukushima) Island — one of the Three Views of Japan (Nihon Sankei) — where the Itsukushima Shrine's vermillion torii gate stands in the tidal flats of the Seto Inland Sea. And Hiroshima has its own food: okonomiyaki (Hiroshima style — completely different from Osaka's version, with noodles layered inside the savoury pancake). Best months: March–May and October–November.

📅 3-day itinerary →
Asia
🇯🇵 Japan

Kobe

Kobe (神戸 — God-Harbor) is a city of 1.5 million people in Hyogo Prefecture, sandwiched between the Rokko mountain range (rising to 931m) and Osaka Bay on the eastern coast of Awaji Island — 30km west of Osaka by train, forming part of the Keihanshin metropolitan region (20 million people). Kobe was one of the first Japanese ports to open to Western trade (in 1868, after the Meiji Restoration), and its 150-year history of international trade and settlement has given the city an unusually cosmopolitan character: the Kitano Ijinkan-gai (North Ward Foreign Residences) district has the best-preserved collection of Western-style houses (ijinkan) in Japan (18 surviving Western-style mansions from the 1880s–1930s), and Chinatown (Nankinmachi) is the second-most famous Chinatown in Japan after Yokohama's. Kobe is also the source of the most celebrated beef in the world: Kobe Beef (神戸ビーフ — from the Tajima (但馬) strain of Japanese Black (Wagyu) cattle raised in Hyogo Prefecture, fed on a specific diet of rice straw, grass, and concentrate feed; the beef is graded on marbling, colour, texture, and fat quality; the highest-grade Kobe beef (BMS 12, the maximum marbling score) is among the most expensive foods sold by weight on earth). The 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake (Mw 6.9, January 17, 1995 — 6,434 people killed in Kobe and the surrounding area) destroyed 100,000 buildings and fundamentally changed the urban fabric and the cultural identity of the city. Best months: April–May and October–November.

📅 3-day itinerary →
Asia
🇯🇵 Japan

Kyoto

Kyoto was Japan's imperial capital for more than 1,000 years (794–1868 AD) and is the cultural and spiritual heart of the country — the city where Japanese aesthetics, Buddhist philosophy, Shinto ritual, traditional arts (tea ceremony, ikebana, kabuki, geisha) and garden design all crystallized into a uniquely refined civilization. Within a single metropolitan area of 1.5 million people are 1,600 Buddhist temples, 400 Shinto shrines, 17 UNESCO World Heritage sites, and the finest traditional Japanese cuisine (kaiseki ryori) in the world. Unlike Tokyo, Kyoto was spared US bombing in WWII (Secretary of War Henry Stimson had visited as a young man and intervened to remove it from the target list). Three days here requires ruthless prioritization.

📅 3-day itinerary →
Asia
🇯🇵 Japan

Nagoya

Nagoya is Japan's fourth-largest city and the industrial heart of the country — home to Toyota, whose global headquarters and the Toyota Commemorative Museum of Industry and Technology are the most comprehensive automotive history sites in the world. The city was almost completely destroyed in the 1945 firebombing but Nagoya Castle, reconstructed in 1959 with its golden shachihoko (tiger-fish) ornaments, remains the symbol of the city's Tokugawa samurai heritage. Nagoya was the seat of the Owari domain, one of the three Tokugawa branch families, and the city's cuisine reflects this feudal prosperity in its distinctive "Nagoya-meshi" food culture: miso katsu (pork cutlet with dark red hatcho miso sauce), hitsumabushi (grilled eel over rice eaten three ways), kishimen flat noodles and tebasaki chicken wings that have become a nationwide obsession. Nagoya is also the gateway to three UNESCO World Heritage Sites: the Shirakawa-go historic villages (2 hrs north), the Ise Grand Shrines (1.5 hrs south-east) and Kiso Valley's preserved samurai post-towns — making it one of Japan's most undervalued bases for cultural exploration.

📅 3-day itinerary →
Asia
🇯🇵 Japan

Naha

Naha is the capital of Okinawa Prefecture — Japan's southernmost island chain with a culture, history and climate so distinct from mainland Japan that Okinawans have long maintained a separate identity as the Ryukyu Kingdom, which was only formally annexed by Japan in 1879. The Ryukyu Kingdom's heritage is visible in the UNESCO-inscribed Shuri Castle (reconstructed after wartime destruction and again after the 2019 fire), the Okinawan textile arts of bingata dyeing and Ryukyu lacquerware, and the awamori rice spirits that are to Okinawa what sake is to Japan. Naha also has one of Japan's most distinctive street food cultures — the 400-metre Nishiki Market imitator, the 400-metre Makishi Public Market with its brilliant tropical fish, coral-colored awamori bottles and raw sea creatures that can be cooked upstairs. Okinawa has had the world's longest-living population and the concept of "ikigai" (reason for being) is closely associated with the island's unhurried lifestyle, tart mozuku seaweed, purple sweet potato (beni-imo), goya (bitter melon) champuru stir-fries and the social structure of "moai" support groups that help residents live past 100. The aquamarine waters around Naha have some of Japan's finest coral and tropical fish.

📅 3-day itinerary →
Asia
🇯🇵 Japan

Okayama

Okayama is a city of 700,000 in western Japan's Chugoku region, best known internationally for two extraordinary cultural assets: Korakuen Garden (consistently ranked one of the three finest traditional Japanese gardens, alongside Kenroku-en in Kanazawa and Kairaku-en in Mito) and Okayama Castle, the rare "Crow Castle" — one of only twelve surviving original feudal castles in Japan, painted completely black in contrast to the white of Himeji Castle visible on a clear day from the Chugoku mountains. Okayama is also the gateway to Kurashiki, the best-preserved Edo-period merchant quarter in western Japan — a canal-side historic district of white-walled kura (merchant warehouses) now housing the Ohara Museum of Art (the first Western art museum in Japan, holding a Greco and Monet), the Bikan quarter and the most atmospheric historic townscape between Kyoto and Hiroshima. The city's cultural identity extends to the Kibiji Plain cycling route (the flat agricultural plain between ancient burial mounds that makes Japan's most pleasant bicycle day trip) and the Washuzan hill where the Great Seto Bridge (1988, the longest two-level bridge in the world connecting Honshu to Shikoku Island) can be seen in its entirety. Okayama is the sunshine capital of Japan — the region receives the least rainfall in Japan, earning the nickname "Country of Sunshine" (Hare no Kuni) — and the local cuisine includes Okayama Barazushi (scattered sushi pressed in a box with seasonal local vegetables and seafood), Demi Katsu (a Worcestershire-style demi-glace sauce on pork cutlet) and the famous Kibi dango (sweet millet dumplings, the inspiration for the legend of Momotaro/Peach Boy).

📅 3-day itinerary →
Asia
🇯🇵 Japan

Osaka

Osaka is Japan's second-largest metropolitan area (19 million people) and the country's culinary capital — the city where the phrase kuidaore (食い倒れ — "eat until you drop") originated, and where Japanese popular culture is at its most exuberant. While Kyoto refined, Osaka indulged: takoyaki (octopus balls), okonomiyaki (savory pancakes), kushikatsu (deep-fried skewers), ramen with rich tonkotsu broth, and the most competitive street food scene in Japan. Add to this the Dotonbori canal (the neon-lit embodiment of Japanese kitsch), Osaka Castle (one of Japan's finest), the Tsutenkaku tower in retro Shinsekai, and easy day trips to Nara (the ancient capital with wild deer). Osaka is louder, cheaper, friendlier and more fun than Tokyo.

📅 3-day itinerary →
Asia
🇯🇵 Japan

Sapporo

Sapporo is the capital of Hokkaido Prefecture — Japan's northernmost main island — and the fourth-largest city in Japan with a population of 1.97 million. Sapporo is one of the youngest major cities in Japan (founded 1869 when the Meiji government opened Hokkaido to development and settlement by mainland Japanese — before 1869, Hokkaido was primarily inhabited by the Ainu indigenous people; the city was laid out on an American-influenced grid plan by the Kaitakushi (Development Commission) using American agricultural and engineering advisors who redesigned the city from scratch in the 1870s) and one of the most visited winter destinations in Japan — the Sapporo Snow Festival (Sapporo Yuki Matsuri, February, held on the Odori Park and in the Susukino ice sculpture venue: 200+ massive snow sculptures built by teams from around Japan and the world, some 25 m high; 2 million visitors over 7 days; founded in 1950 by six local high school students who built 6 snow sculptures in Odori Park; now the largest snow festival in the world) and the Hokkaido winter sports (Niseko ski resort, 100 km southwest — one of the top ski destinations in the world with an average of 15 metres of powder snow per year; Furano ski area, 120 km north; the Hokkaido backcountry skiing scene). Sapporo hosted the 1972 Winter Olympics (the first Winter Olympics in Asia — the ski jumping at Ōkurayama, the speed skating at Makomanai). Outside the winter, Hokkaido is Japan's food paradise — the freshest seafood in Japan (crab: hairy crab, king crab, snow crab; sea urchin/uni; salmon and ikura roe; scallops from the Saroma Lake), the finest dairy products in Japan (Hokkaido accounts for over 50% of Japan's milk, butter and cheese production — the "Hokkaido milk" is the most prized in Japan), the Sapporo Beer (Japan's oldest beer brand, 1876), and the Sapporo ramen (the miso-base ramen unique to Sapporo, with corn, butter and a thick noodle, the most filling ramen in Japan).

📅 3-day itinerary →
Asia
🇯🇵 Japan

Sendai

Sendai is the largest city in the Tōhoku region of Japan, the capital of Miyagi Prefecture, with a population of 1.1 million — known as the "City of Trees" (Mori no Miyako) for the densely tree-lined boulevards and forested hills throughout the urban area. Sendai was founded as a castle town by Date Masamune (1567-1636), the most powerful daimyo of the Sengoku period outside the Tokugawa clan — the "One-eyed Dragon of Ōu" (he lost his right eye to smallpox at age 5; he grew it out so the eye socket did not bother him, then had the eye removed by a surgeon when the empty socket was staring at an enemy commander — the historical accounts are disputed but the image of the black eyepatch is inseparable from Date Masamune's identity); Masamune built the Sendai Castle (Aoba Castle) on the forested hilltop above the Hirose River in 1601 and created the grid city below it that still forms the basis of modern Sendai. The Tanabata Matsuri (the Sendai Tanabata Festival, August 6-8 — the largest Tanabata festival in Japan, drawing 2 million visitors; the festival celebrates the Chinese legend of the separated star-lovers Orihime and Hikoboshi; the Sendai version features enormous ornate paper streamers in 7 traditional decorations hung from bamboo poles throughout the shopping arcades; the Sendai version became dominant after the post-WWII reconstruction when the city decided to revive the festival as a morale booster) and the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami (March 11, 2011 — the most powerful earthquake in Japan's recorded history, 9.0 magnitude; the tsunami that followed reached heights of 38 m at the Sanriku coast; Sendai's coastal areas of Arahama and Nakahama were destroyed; 19,747 people confirmed dead or missing in the Tōhoku region; the Sendai region has extensive memorial sites and the Yuriage fishing village reconstruction are major reasons visitors come to the coast) make Sendai one of the most significant destinations in northern Japan.

📅 3-day itinerary →
Asia
🇯🇵 Japan

Tokyo

Tokyo (東京 — "Eastern Capital" — renamed from Edo in 1868 when Emperor Meiji moved the imperial court from Kyoto) is the largest metropolitan area on earth (37 million people in Greater Tokyo, the largest urban agglomeration in human history) and simultaneously the city with the most Michelin stars (230+, more than Paris — the result of a perfectionist culture that applies the same discipline to a three-seat sushi counter as to a ryokan in the mountains), the most vending machines per capita (5 million — one for every 23 people), and arguably the cleanest subway system of any city on earth. Tokyo is a city of extreme contrasts that somehow coexist: Shinjuku (the busiest train station in the world — 3.64 million passengers per day, 200 exits) is 15 minutes from the Meiji Shrine (Meiji Jingū — the forested Shinto shrine in the middle of the city where you can watch a Shinto wedding on a weekend morning); the Tsukiji outer market (still the most exciting early-morning fish market in the world despite the inner market moving to Toyosu) is 30 minutes from Akihabara (the electronics and anime district where nine-story buildings sell only manga); and the Shibuya crossing (the world's busiest pedestrian crossing, 2,500 people crossing per light cycle) is next to Daikanyama (the most quietly stylish shopping street in Japan, where T-site is the most beautiful bookshop in the world). Tokyo's food culture requires a guidebook of its own: ramen, sushi (at a standing counter for ¥1,000 or at a 3-seat bar for ¥30,000), yakitori, tonkatsu, tempura and the extraordinary department store basement food halls (depachika).

📅 3-day itinerary →
Asia
🇯🇵 Japan

Yokohama

Yokohama (横浜; population 3.77 million; Japan's second largest city; the capital of Kanagawa Prefecture; 30 km south of central Tokyo on the western shore of Tokyo Bay) opened to foreign trade on June 2, 1859 as one of the five treaty ports mandated by the Harris Treaty (the "Ansei Treaties" — the unequal commercial treaties signed between Japan and the United States, Netherlands, Russia, United Kingdom and France in 1858 under threat of US Navy Commodore Matthew Perry's "Black Ships" (Kurofune) following Perry's forced entry into Edo Bay in 1853): Yokohama was selected as the treaty port in preference to Edo (Tokyo) because the Japanese government wanted to keep the foreign merchants as far as possible from the capital, and the swampy fishing village of Yokohama (population 100 at the time of the treaty opening) was sufficiently remote; the city that grew from the treaty port in the 1860s-1880s created the prototype for all Japanese cultural contact with the West: the first Western-style bakery (1860), the first ice cream shop (1869), the first Japanese newspaper (the Yokohama Mainichi Shimbun, 1871), the first Western-style beer brewery (1869 — the Spring Valley Brewery, the ancestor of Kirin beer, established by the Norwegian-American brewer William Copeland), the first Japanese gas street lighting (1872), the first railway in Japan (the Yokohama-Shimbashi steam railway, October 14, 1872 — the most important technological event in Meiji Japan), and the first ramen (the Chinese-style wheat noodle soup that Japanese know as "ramen" originated in Yokohama's Chinatown in the 1870s-1880s from Chinese noodle shops (the "Zhina soba" — the "China noodles") in the Kannai district). Yokohama contains Japan's largest Chinatown (Yokohama Chūkagai — the 500+ Chinese-owned restaurants and shops in the 0.2 km² Chinatown enclave in the Yamashita district), the most historically significant foreign settlement area (the Yamate Bluff (Yamate-chō) — the foreign residential district on the hillside above the port, where the Victorian villas and the 40 Western-style buildings that survived the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake remain as the most complete collection of Meiji-era Western domestic architecture in Japan), and the most dramatic modern waterfront redevelopment in Asia (the Minato Mirai 21 (港みらい21 — "Harbour Future 21") — the 186-hectare waterfront reclamation project converting the former Mitsubishi shipyard into a mixed-use waterfront district anchored by the Yokohama Landmark Tower (296 m — the second-tallest building in Japan)).

📅 3-day itinerary →