Toyoura Onsen Hokkaido

Toyoura Onsen Hokkaido is a thermal bathing facility in Toyoura Town on the southwestern coast of Hokkaido, a small volcanic lakeshore community on the Pacific coast of the Shikotsu-Toya National Park facing Uchiura Bay (Funka Bay), the large volcanic bay whose dramatic semicircular shore is framed by the volcanic cones of Usu, Koma-ga-take, and the distinctive silhouette of Mount Yotei, the isolated stratovolcano dubbed Ezo Fuji for its perfect symmetrical form that dominates the southern Hokkaido skyline in one of the most visually impressive volcanic landscapes in all of Japan. The Toyoura area is most famous for hosting the Showa-Shinzan lava dome on private agricultural land, where a new volcano dramatically grew from a farmer's flat wheat field between December 1943 and September 1945, rising 398 meters in a geological time-lapse of volcanic birth witnessed and documented by the local postmaster Masao Mimatsu in an extraordinary personal scientific record of volcanic formation. The chloride thermal spring waters of Toyoura emerge from the geothermal activity of the Usu volcanic system, providing bathing beside an active volcanic landscape where the memory of a volcano growing from a wheat field, the UNESCO Global Geopark designation of the Usu area, and the extraordinary volcanic scenery of Funka Bay create one of Hokkaido's most geologically dynamic and historically memorable hot spring settings.