Amami Oshima Spa

Amami Oshima Spa is located in Amami City, Kagoshima Prefecture, on Amami Oshima — the largest island in the Amami island group and a UNESCO World Natural Heritage Site recognized for its extraordinary subtropical biodiversity, including the Amami rabbit (a living fossil species unchanged for over 10 million years), the Amami woodcock, and the island's extraordinary subtropical forest ecosystem that shelters hundreds of endemic species found nowhere else on Earth. The siliceous thermal waters here complement an island of extraordinary natural heritage, whose distinctive Amami culture — including the sanshin (three-stringed lute) music tradition, the renowned Oshima tsumugi silk textiles (the world's finest hand-woven silk fabric), and the traditional Amami shintoism — creates one of Japan's most culturally distinctive island identities at the boundary between the Japanese and Ryukyuan cultural worlds. Bathing at Amami Oshima Spa in this UNESCO World Heritage island provides a therapeutic mineral spring experience enriched by the extraordinary natural and cultural heritage of an island whose unique position between Japan and the Ryukyu Kingdom has created an irreplaceable biodiversity and cultural tradition.