Osawayama Onsen
- Location
- Tokamachi, Niigata, Japan
- Water type
- iron-rich
- Temperature
- 38 °C
- pH
- 6.3
Water profile
Soothing — neither hot nor cold, perfect balance.
Rich in active gases or metals — a strong mineral character.
Soft water — natural, classic buoyancy.
Osawayama Onsen is a hot spring in Minamiuonuma City, Niigata Prefecture, in the celebrated snow country Yukiguni zone of the Uonuma Mountains where Kawabata Yasunari set his Nobel Prize-winning novel Snow Country, whose bicarbonate, ferruginous, and calcareous mineral waters combine three therapeutically significant mineral components in a spring of notably complex character. Minamiuonuma is one of thirteen hot spring areas within the city, accessible from the Joshin-etsu Line's Osawa Station via the Niigata Prefectural Route 76 heading toward the Shiinomata mountain pass, and it represents one of the quieter and more mountain-secluded bathing destinations in a region internationally recognized for its exceptional heavy snowfall that makes Uonuma rice and Minamiuonuma Koshihikari the most highly regarded premium rice varieties in Japan. The combination of bicarbonate alkalinity, iron richness, and calcareous mineral character gives the Osawayama spring a complex therapeutic profile that attracts hot spring connoisseurs seeking mineralogically distinctive bathing in the snow country mountain environment.