Urabandai Onsen

Urabandai Onsen is a highland thermal resort in Kitashiobara village in Fukushima Prefecture, set within the extraordinary volcanic landscape created by the catastrophic 1888 eruption of Mount Bandai — which collapsed the north flank of the volcano and created a vast new landscape of over 300 lakes, marshes, and swamps in what became Japan's first volcanic formation national park, the Bandai-Asahi National Park. The siliceous hot spring waters of Urabandai emerge from the geothermal system of the Bandai volcanic complex, providing thermal bathing amid a landscape of brilliant blue crater lakes, particularly the famous Five-Color Lakes (Goshikinuma), autumn foliage of exceptional brilliance, and birch forests that create one of Japan's most celebrated highland scenic landscapes. The juxtaposition of therapeutic siliceous bathing with immersion in one of Japan's most spectacular post-eruption volcanic lake landscapes — a landscape created in a single catastrophic geological event just 136 years ago — gives Urabandai Onsen an extraordinary geological and aesthetic dimension.