Hirado Onsen

Hirado Onsen is located in Hirado, a small island city in Nagasaki Prefecture with a place in Japanese history unique for its extraordinary cross-cultural heritage — Hirado was the first port in Japan to establish permanent European trade relations, welcoming Dutch traders in 1609 and maintaining a Dutch East India Company (VOC) trading post here for 33 years before the Dutch were moved to Dejima in Nagasaki, and also hosting Portuguese and British traders at various points, making Hirado a genuine meeting point of East and West at the dawn of Japan's engagement with European civilization. The Christian missionary Francis Xavier also visited Hirado during his Japanese travels in 1550, and the city's hilltop church (built 1931) stands visible alongside feudal-era Buddhist temple rooftops in a uniquely juxtaposed skyline that symbolizes Hirado's layered religious and cultural heritage. Hirado Castle overlooks this remarkable historical townscape from its hilltop position, and the onsen here provide silica-rich mineral bathing in a city whose small scale belies its enormous historical significance as Japan's original gateway to the European world.