Kashima Onsen
- Location
- Kashima, Ibaraki, Japan
- Water type
- sodium chloride
- Temperature
- 41 °C
- pH
- 7.3
Water profile
Relaxing — deep, immediate muscle release.
Loaded with major ions — the essential minerals (Ca, Mg).
Dense, salty water — you float without effort.
Kashima Onsen lies in the shadow of Kashima Jingu, one of Japan's most ancient and revered Shinto shrines, dedicated to Takemikazuchi-no-mikoto — the god of thunder and the sword — whose forest sanctuary of towering cedar trees has been a place of warrior pilgrimage since the Nara period and whose influence on Japanese martial culture is so pervasive that Kashima-shinto-ryu, the oldest surviving Japanese swordsmanship tradition, was founded here. The shrine's sacred forest, protecting ancient trees of extraordinary age along approaches of deeply atmospheric stillness, creates a religious landscape unlike any other in the Kanto region. The nearby Kashima Antlers football club — named for the sacred deer that wander the shrine precincts — has carried the town's identity into Japan's national sporting consciousness, while the onsen's siliceous waters offer a grounding complement to both the spiritual intensity of the ancient shrine and the modern energy of one of Japan's most successful football clubs.