is a hot spring resort in the town of Shirahama,

Wakayama Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kansai region of Honshu. Wakayama Prefecture has a population of 944,320 () and has a geographic area of . Wakayama Prefecture borders Osaka Prefecture to the north, and Mie Prefecture and Nara Prefecture ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the n ...

. It is a major resort area for the

Kansai region The or the , lies in the southern-central region of Japan's main island Honshū. The region includes the prefectures of Nara, Wakayama, Kyoto, Osaka, Hyōgo and Shiga, often also Mie, sometimes Fukui, Tokushima and Tottori. The metropoli ...

of Japan, and was ranked alongside Atami Onsen and

Beppu Onsen is a group of hot springs in the city of Beppu, Ōita in Japan. Beppu Onsen is divided into eight major hot spring areas known as "Beppu Hatto". The most significant characteristic of Beppu's hot springs is the richness of its resources. The v ...

as one of the three major seaside hot spring resorts.

History

The hot springs in this area have been used since ancient times and are mentioned on several occasions in the '' Nihon Shoki''. Empress Kōgyoku,

Empress Jitō was the 41st monarch of Japan,Imperial Household Agency (''Kunaichō'') 持統天皇 (41)/ref> according to the traditional order of succession. Jitō's reign spanned the years from 686 through 697.Titsingh, Isaac. (1834). In the history of ...

and Emperor Monmu are recorded as having visited during the

Asuka period The was a period in the history of Japan lasting from 538 to 710 (or 592 to 645), although its beginning could be said to overlap with the preceding Kofun period. The Yamato polity evolved greatly during the Asuka period, which is named after ...

and the

Nara period The of the history of Japan covers the years from CE 710 to 794. Empress Genmei established the capital of Heijō-kyō (present-day Nara). Except for a five-year period (740–745), when the capital was briefly moved again, it remained the c ...

Man'yōshū The is the oldest extant collection of Japanese (poetry in Classical Japanese), compiled sometime after AD 759 during the Nara period. The anthology is one of the most revered of Japan's poetic compilations. The compiler, or the last in ...

'' refers to the springs as the "Muro-no-yu" after the ancient district name within

Kii Province , or , was a province of Japan in the part of Honshū that is today Wakayama Prefecture, as well as the southern part of Mie Prefecture. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "''Kii''" in . Kii bordered Ise, Izumi, Kawachi, Shima, and Yamato Prov ...

in which they are located. The springs were visited by nobility as well as commoners throughout history, and the

Edo period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional '' daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was character ...

"Kii Koku Fudōki" guidebook states that the area had 60 inns for all classes of bathers. However, the hot springs referred to in these ancient texts are not the present Nanki-Shirahama Onsen, but were located in the mountains further inland. The current resort was only developed from 1919, when local volunteers began developing the seaside area in competition to the older springs in the mountains. Up until that time, the seaside of Shirahama had been famous for its white quartz sands, which had also been celebrated in ancient poetry as a metaphor for "whiteness". These sands were exploited commercially for their high silica content for use in glass production and were also exported. Efforts to bore for hot water were successful by 1922, and a local commercial shipping company, the Shirahama Onsen Motor Co., Ltd. began promotion of the area as a resort. This received a boost by a visit of

Emperor Showa Emperor , commonly known in English-speaking countries by his personal name , was the 124th emperor of Japan, ruling from 25 December 1926 until his death in 1989. Hirohito and his wife, Empress Kōjun, had two sons and five daughters; he was ...

I 1929. After World War II, the area was promoted as a honeymoon resort and as a destination for group tourism from them 1960s. The opening of Nanki Shirahama Adventure World in the 1990s have gradually changed the focus of the resort towards families.

External links

Nanki Shirahama Tourism website

Shirahama Ryokan
Hot springs of Japan Tourist attractions in Wakayama Prefecture Hot springs of Wakayama Prefecture Spa towns in Japan Shirahama, Wakayama {{Wakayama-geo-stub

History

See also

External links