Gunma Travel Guide

An ancient resort town built up a single stone staircase of 365 steps — each step flanked by traditional wooden inns, souvenir shops, and bathhouses. The brown iron-rich water (chakki-yu) has been praised since the Manyoshu (8th century) and stains baths and tiles a distinct dark orange. The town was a favourite retreat of writers and artists throughout the Meiji era.

Japan's most celebrated hot spring resort — producing over 32,000 litres of acidic sulphurous water per minute from its collective springs, centred on the iconic Yubatake (hot water field). The water is so acidic (pH 2.1) that it kills almost all bacteria, giving rise to the local saying "the only thing Kusatsu water can't cure is a broken heart." The Yubatake at night is extraordinary.

A caldera lake at 1,084 metres on the volcano Mt Haruna. The lake is famous for its winter ice fishing (smelt) when the surface freezes solid enough to walk on, its summer wakasagi fishing from boats, and the horse-drawn sleighs that cross the frozen surface in February.

The Tone River gorge town that is Japan's outdoor sports capital — white-water rafting, bungee jumping, canyoning, and hot air ballooning all operate year-round. Minakami is also the gateway to the Tanigawa mountain range (the Japanese Alps' most lethal peak) and to Tanigawadake Onsen, a cable car onsen above the snowline.

A broad volcanic mountain at 1,828m above the Kanto Plain with a caldera lake (Onuma) at the summit — one of Gunma's three famous mountains. The mountain is known for its extensive beech and oak forests that turn extraordinary gold and crimson in October, and for its connection to the legendary Akagi-san swordsman tradition in Japanese folklore.

A castle town perched on a mesa above the Tone and Usui Rivers confluence — the flat-topped plateau creates dramatic views of the surrounding valleys. The town was the domain of Sanada Masayuki (the same commander of Ueda Castle) and holds the Kenmachi shopping street of Edo-period earthen-wall merchant buildings.

Japan's largest highland marshland (approx. 1,400m elevation) — a UNESCO Ramsar wetland of ancient peat bogs, alpine ponds, and rare mizubasho (skunk cabbage) lilies that bloom in May when snow still covers the mountain ridges around the plateau. Boardwalk trails cross the protected wetland habitat of Oze National Park (approx. 372 km²).

A remote, mist-filled mountain onsen town said to have inspired the setting of Spirited Away — a narrow valley with ryokan stacked up both sides above a rushing river, cable cars crossing between inn buildings, and a communal bath (Kashiwaya-no-yu) in the forest that has been used for 1,300 years.

A castle park best known for 10,000 azalea plants (50 varieties) cascading down the old earthwork ramparts in late April — one of Japan's top azalea spectacles. The park also has 1,100 cherry trees and the reconstructed castle tower. In autumn, the earthwork moats fill with reflected maple colour.

A UNESCO World Heritage site — Japan's first modern industrial factory, built in 1872 to process silk using French Jacquard machinery. The vast brick and timber-frame reeling halls are the best-preserved 19th-century industrial buildings in Asia. Tomioka launched Japan's industrial revolution and made silk Japan's most valuable export for 70 years.