Wakkanai Onsen

Wakkanai Onsen in Wakkanai City, the northernmost city in Japan, flows with sulfurous thermal waters at the very tip of Hokkaido's Soya Peninsula, a location of extreme northern latitude where the thermal spring provides essential warmth in one of Japan's most climatically demanding environments, positioned just south of the Soya Strait that separates Hokkaido from the Russian island of Sakhalin. The spring's sulfurous mineral character reflects the volcanic geology that underlies even this remote northern extremity of Japan's island chain, where the geothermal energy of the Kuril arc continues to produce thermal spring water in settings far removed from the more visually dramatic volcanic peaks of Hokkaido's interior. Wakkanai Onsen offers visitors the extraordinary experience of thermal bathing at the geographical extreme of Japan's inhabitable territory, where the northernmost city's sulfurous spring water, harsh sub-Arctic climate, and the distant horizon of the Russian coast combine to create a bathing experience of exceptional geographical and atmospheric character available nowhere else in the Japanese archipelago.