Sammu Onsen

Sammu Onsen lies on the edge of the Kujukuri Plain, a 60-kilometer sweep of unbroken sandy beach along Chiba's Pacific coast that is one of the longest straight beaches in Japan and a major destination for surfers drawn by the consistent swells generated by Pacific winter storms rolling in from the open ocean. The Sammu area's low-lying coastal plain, protected from storm surge by coastal pine forests planted in the Edo period, produces high-quality rice and strawberries in fields that extend inland from the beach to the gentle hills of the Chiba interior. The onsen's siliceous geothermal waters, tapping into the mineral-rich aquifer of the Kanto lowland geology, offer restorative bathing in a coastal agricultural community whose Pacific beach frontage makes it one of the more scenically distinctive settings for thermal bathing within Chiba Prefecture's generally flat landscape.