Kuma Onsen

Kuma Onsen is situated in the Kuma district of Kumamoto Prefecture along the famous Kuma River (Kumagawa), consistently ranked among Japan's three most rapid rivers for the speed and power of its descent from the Hitoyoshi basin to the Yatsushiro Sea — a river whose raging rapids have been celebrated in Japanese poetry, harnessed for hydroelectric power, and most exhilaratingly experienced on the traditional wooden boat rafting tours that carry visitors through the gorge at thrilling speeds matched by the scenic grandeur of the forested canyon walls rising on either side. The Hitoyoshi-Kuma region through which the river flows preserves one of the most intact traditional rural landscapes in Kyushu, where thatched-roof farmhouses, local sake breweries using kuma river water, and the distinctive Kuma culture of independent-minded mountain communities have maintained a way of life that the 2020 flood devastation — when the Kuma River catastrophically overflowed — tested to the utmost before the community began its resilient recovery. The onsen here draw on the volcanic geothermal energy that warms the Kuma valley's springs, providing mineral bathing beside one of Japan's most powerful and scenically dramatic rivers.