Shimashima Onsen Gifu
- Location
- Shimashima, Gifu (Chubu), Japan
- Water type
- sodium chloride, bicarbonate
- Temperature
- 42 °C
- pH
- 8
Water profile
Relaxing — deep, immediate muscle release.
Loaded with major ions — the essential minerals (Ca, Mg).
Dense, salty water — you float without effort.
Shimashima Onsen Gifu is a quiet mountain hot spring on the upper reaches of the Nagara River in the Gero area of Gifu Prefecture, a remote river valley spa that offers traditional bicarbonate spring bathing in a setting of dense cedar and cypress forest characteristic of the Hida mountain watershed where the Nagara's clear waters support one of Japan's finest wild ayu (sweetfish) river fishing traditions, the subject of centuries of appreciation in Japanese culinary and aesthetic culture. The Nagara River is one of Japan's last great undammed rivers in its lower reaches, celebrated for its traditional cormorant fishing (ukai) practiced at night by fishermen whose trained cormorants dive for ayu under the light of iron basket fires swung from the prow of wooden boats in a spectacle designated an Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property recognized since the imperial court first documented it over 1,300 years ago. The sodium-bicarbonate thermal waters of this mountain spring offer peaceful recovery for those exploring the upper Nagara valley's fishing culture and forested mountain landscape, far from the more developed resort infrastructure of the Gero Onsen district downstream.