Regions & prefectures

The great northern island: powder-snow winters, lavender summers and a cuisine built on the sea and dairy.

Sapporo

Apple orchards, primeval beech forests and the loudest of Japan’s summer festivals.

Aomori

The country’s second-largest prefecture, fallen capital of a Buddhist golden age.

Morioka

The capital of Tōhoku, a bay strewn with eight hundred islets, and the rebuilding after 2011.

Sendai

Rice, sake, deep snow and demons that go door to door at New Year.

Akita

Three sacred mountains, cherries, and firs turned into ice monsters every winter.

Yamagata

The Aizu country, its die-hard samurai and its thatched-roof post towns.

Fukushima

The laboratory city of Tsukuba, a garden of three thousand plum trees and the capital of nattō.

Mito

The baroque mausoleum of the Tokugawa founder, and the town that eats the most gyōza in Japan.

Utsunomiya

The prefecture of hot springs and of Japan’s first industrial silk mill.

Maebashi

Tokyo’s northern suburb, seven million people, and a "little Edo" of storehouse streets.

Saitama

The country’s international airport, the Bōsō peninsula and the soy sauce vats of Noda.

Chiba

Thirty-seven million people in its urban area, and two thousand kilometres of islands offshore.

Shinjuku (metropolitan government seat)

The first port opened to foreigners, the samurai capital, and the hot springs of Hakone.

Yokohama

Japan’s rice bowl, its sake cellars and an island of exile turned gold mine.

Niigata

A deep bay, three-thousand-metre Alps, and a twenty-metre wall of snow in spring.

Toyama

The art city spared by the bombs, its lacquerware, its geisha and 99 % of Japan’s gold leaf.

Kanazawa

The country’s strictest zen monastery, basalt cliffs and Japan’s best dinosaur fossils.

Fukui

The northern face of Mount Fuji, Japan’s vineyards and the home of the Takeda clan.

Kōfu

The roof of Japan: central Alps, the 1998 Winter Olympics and macaques in the hot pools.

Nagano

The thatched farmhouses of Shirakawa-gō, the forges of Seki and Hida beef.

Gifu

Fuji’s southern face, forty percent of Japan’s tea and the country’s deepest bay.

Shizuoka

Japan’s industrial workshop, homeland of the three unifiers and a cuisine built on red miso.

Nagoya

Shinto’s most sacred shrine, the ama divers and Matsusaka beef.

Tsu

A sixth of the prefecture is a lake, and that lake is the oldest in Japan.

Ōtsu

Eleven centuries as imperial capital, sixteen hundred temples, and the tea of Uji.

Kyoto

The people’s kitchen, the country’s quickest dialect and four centuries of merchant tradition.

Osaka

The white castle of Himeji, Kobe beef and Japan’s leading sake brewing district.

Kobe

Japan’s first permanent capital, its free-roaming deer and the world’s largest bronze Buddha.

Nara

The monks’ mountain, the Kumano pilgrimage trails and umeboshi plums.

Wakayama

Japan’s least populated prefecture, and the only one with a desert of sand dunes.

Tottori

The shrine where all the gods of Japan gather once a year.

Matsue

The land of sunshine, one of Japan’s three great gardens and the legend of Momotarō.

Okayama

The city of the first atomic bomb, turned world capital of disarmament.

Hiroshima

The domain that overthrew the shogunate, and the port where cooks learn to prepare pufferfish.

Yamaguchi

Four nights of dancing in August, tidal whirlpools and the indigo that dressed Japan.

Tokushima

Japan’s smallest prefecture, self-declared udon capital and contemporary art laboratory.

Takamatsu

Japan’s oldest public baths, a castle on its hill and tangerines everywhere.

Matsuyama

Japan’s last wild river, bonito seared over straw, and the samurai who brokered modernity.

Kōchi

The gateway to the continent, the street stalls of Hakata and pork-bone broth ramen.

Fukuoka

The birthplace of Japanese porcelain, born of Korean potters deported in the sixteenth century.

Saga

Japan’s only window onto the West during two centuries of closure.

Nagasaki

The world’s largest inhabited caldera, a castle besieged in 1877 and a black bear mascot.

Kumamoto

More hot springs and more thermal water than anywhere else in Japan.

Ōita

The gorge where the sun goddess is said to have hidden, and the fried chicken that conquered Japan.

Miyazaki

A permanently erupting volcano facing the city, and the old domain of Satsuma.

Kagoshima

A former independent kingdom a thousand kilometres south, with its own language, music and food.

Naha

The mountain of twisted pines that trained the eye of all Chinese painting.

Hefei

The province the overseas Chinese sailed from, and where oolong teas were born.

Fuzhou

The scholars’ gardens of Suzhou, the Grand Canal and the old southern capital.

Nanjing

The world capital of porcelain for a thousand years, and the cradle of the Red Army.

Nanchang

The sacred mountain emperors climbed, and the birthplace of Confucius.

Jinan

The city that invented Chinese modernity twice, in the 1930s and again in the 1990s.

Shanghai

West Lake, Longjing tea and the world capital of small trade.

Hangzhou

Eight centuries as capital, a forbidden city at its centre and alleys counted in thousands.

Beijing

The province that surrounds Beijing, its Great Wall passes and the Qing summer residence.

Shijiazhuang

Two thousand four hundred kilometres of steppe along the Mongolian border.

Hohhot

Coal, the bankers of old and the oldest Buddhist grottoes of northern China.

Taiyuan

Beijing’s port, its nine foreign concessions and a tradition of music-hall comedians.

Tianjin

A city built on cliffs, where the metro runs through a residential block.

Chongqing

Karst mountains, forty minorities and the most expensive spirit in China.

Guiyang

The fertile basin of a thousand rivers, giant pandas and the peppercorn that numbs.

Chengdu

The highest plateau on earth, averaging four thousand metres, and the Potala Palace.

Lhasa

Twenty-five recognised minorities, terraced rice fields and the birthplace of tea.

Kunming

The world’s workshop, the Cantonese language and the finest cuisine in China.

Guangzhou

The karst peaks of the Li river, the landscape printed on the back of the twenty-yuan note.

Nanning

The cradle of Chinese civilisation, four ancient capitals and the Shaolin temple.

Zhengzhou

The Yangtze crossroads, the world’s largest dam and the mountain of taijiquan.

Wuhan

China’s tropical island, a former place of exile turned beach resort.

Haikou

Sandstone pillars in the mist, a chilli-driven cuisine and Mao’s home province.

Changsha

The Hexi corridor, the obligatory Silk Road passage between desert and mountains.

Lanzhou

The smallest autonomous region, home of the Muslim Hui and a fast-rising wine region.

Yinchuan

Asia’s water tower: the Yangtze, the Yellow River and the Mekong all rise here.

Xining

Thirteen dynasties set their capital here, and a terracotta army waited underground.

Xi’an

A sixth of Chinese territory, two deserts, eight borders and the Silk Road.

Ürümqi

Seven million people on eleven hundred square kilometres, three-quarters of it mountain.

Hong Kong

Four and a half centuries of Portuguese presence, and the world’s largest gambling revenue.

Macau

China’s coldest province, its Russian domes and its city of ice.

Harbin

The border volcano with its crater lake, and China’s largest Korean minority.

Changchun

The cradle of the Qing dynasty, turned heart of Chinese heavy industry.

Shenyang

Six centuries as capital between mountains and river, half the country in its urban area.

Seoul

The port through which Korea opened, and the airport through which it is visited.

Incheon

The province that encircles Seoul, its walled fortress and the demilitarised zone to the north.

Suwon

The great southern port, its beaches, its fish market and its film festival.

Busan

Korea’s hottest city, capital of textiles and traditional medicine.

Daegu

The world’s largest shipyard, and whales carved seven thousand years ago.

Ulsan

A thousand years of the Silla kingdom at Gyeongju, and the home of Korean Confucianism at Andong.

Andong

The coast of a thousand islands, heavy industry and the eighty-one thousand blocks of the Tripitaka.

Changwon

The city of Korean democracy, and a reputation for the best food in the country.

Gwangju

Korea’s rice bowl, the city of bibimbap and the cradle of the Joseon dynasty.

Jeonju

Two thousand islands, the country’s largest tea plantations and the benchmark kimchi.

Muan

The city of Korean research, born from a railway junction.

Daejeon

The only landlocked province, where the oldest book printed with metal type was made.

Cheongju

The old kingdom of Baekje, its royal tombs and a jagged Yellow Sea coast.

Hongseong

An administrative capital built from scratch to relieve Seoul.

Sejong

The eastern mountains, the 2018 Winter Olympics and the East Sea beaches.

Chuncheon

A volcanic island with its own language, its free-diving women and the country’s highest peak.

Jeju City