Regions And Prefectures
Purpose
Organize Japan by region and prefecture for place-based routing and planning.
When to Use
Use this page for region-level comparisons, prefecture orientation, and geographic grouping.
Place Notes
- Japan has 47 prefectures. Prefecture pages and city pages are the right level for official tourism, local closures, event calendars, and administrative details.
- Common travel regions:
- Hokkaido: wide distances, nature, winter travel, seafood, and slower transit assumptions.
- Tohoku: northern Honshu, rural depth, hot springs, festivals, food, and seasonal scenery.
- Kanto: Tokyo/Yokohama core plus nearby day trips such as Nikko, Kamakura, Hakone, and Ibaraki/Chiba options.
- Chubu: central mountains, Nagoya, Kanazawa, Takayama, Matsumoto, Fuji-area routing, and varied coast/alpine planning.
- Kansai: Kyoto, Osaka, Nara, Kobe, Himeji, and dense cultural/food routing.
- Chugoku: Hiroshima, Okayama, Kurashiki, Setouchi islands, Izumo, and western Honshu routes.
- Shikoku: island circuit planning, pilgrimage context, rural transit, udon, rivers, and coastal scenery.
- Kyushu: Fukuoka, Nagasaki, Kumamoto, Kagoshima, hot springs, volcanoes, and strong food identity.
- Okinawa: subtropical islands, beaches, distinct culture, and flight/ferry planning.
- Use region labels to compare trip shape; use prefectures and municipalities to verify actual rules and operations.
Gotchas
- Administrative, tourism, and cultural region groupings may differ; state which grouping is being used.
- Distance can be deceptive: Hokkaido, Tohoku, Kyushu, and island routes often need more transit padding than a national map suggests.