Kanto · 東京
Neon alleys, 1,400-year-old temples and the world's busiest station, all within one train ride.
Explore CityKansai · 京都
Imperial capital for a thousand years: 1,600 Buddhist temples, 400 Shinto shrines, and Arashiyama at dawn.
Explore CityKansai · 大阪
Japan's kitchen. Takoyaki stalls, Hideyoshi's castle keep, and the loudest welcome in the country.
Explore CityHokkaido · 札幌
Miso ramen, powder snow and the February Snow Festival in Odori Park, held every year since 1950.
Explore CityDestinations
Japan is 3,000 km end to end. A first trip usually strings together Tokyo and Kyoto on the Tokaido Shinkansen — 2 h 15 min apart — but the north and the south reward anyone with a second week.
Tokyo
3–4 DAYS
Base in Shinjuku or Marunouchi. Senso-ji at 7 am, teamLab, Tsukiji Outer Market, a night in Golden Gai.
Kyoto
3 DAYS
Higashiyama on foot, Fushimi Inari before sunrise, Kinkaku-ji and Ryoan-ji in one northern loop.
Osaka & Nara
2 DAYS
Eat Dotonbori end to end, then 45 minutes by train to Todai-ji's Great Buddha and the deer of Nara Park.
Sapporo
2–3 DAYS
Winter for the Snow Festival and Niseko powder; summer for lavender in Furano and cool 24 °C afternoons.
Interactive map
Nine pins, nine regions. Click any marker for the landmark card, then open the full detail sheet for history, hours, fees and travel tips.
Stays & Eats
Addresses are the real ones. Tap any address to open it in Google Maps. Reserve kaiseki and sushi counters weeks ahead — most take bookings only by phone or through a hotel concierge.
Aman Tokyo
4.8
Luxury hotel · Tokyo
Occupies the top six floors of the Otemachi Tower. A 30 m washi-lit atrium, ofuro tubs facing the Imperial Palace gardens, and the largest standard rooms in the city.
The Otemachi Tower, 1-5-6 Otemachi, Chiyoda City, Tokyo 100-0004
View on Google Maps ↗HOSHINOYA Kyoto
4.7
Ryokan · Kyoto
Reached only by boat up the Oi River from Arashiyama. Twenty-five rooms in a former Suminokura family villa, kaiseki served in your room.
11-2 Arashiyama Genrokuzancho, Nishikyo Ward, Kyoto 616-0007
View on Google Maps ↗Park Hyatt Tokyo
4.6
Luxury hotel · Shinjuku
The New York Bar on the 52nd floor of Kenzo Tange's Shinjuku Park Tower. Closed since May 2024 for a full renovation — check the reopening date before you plan around it.
3-7-1-2 Nishi-Shinjuku, Shinjuku City, Tokyo 163-1055
View on Google Maps ↗Gion Hatanaka
4.5
Ryokan · Gion
Tatami rooms two minutes from Yasaka Shrine, with a regular maiko dinner evening (Kyo-maiko Yuseki) open to non-guests.
505 Gionmachi Minamigawa, Higashiyama Ward, Kyoto 605-0074
View on Google Maps ↗Ichiran Dotonbori
4.3
Tonkotsu ramen · Osaka
Solo booths, a paper order sheet for spice and richness, open around the clock. The Dotonbori branch has the shortest queue at 3 am.
7-18 Soemoncho, Chuo Ward, Osaka 542-0084
View on Google Maps ↗Kikunoi Honten
4.6
Kaiseki · Kyoto
Yoshihiro Murata's three-Michelin-star kaiseki house below Maruyama Park, founded 1912. Book a month out; lunch is the cheaper way in.
459 Shimokawaracho, Higashiyama Ward, Kyoto 605-0825
View on Google Maps ↗Sukiyabashi Jiro
4.4
Edomae sushi · Ginza
Ten seats in a basement off Ginza; Jiro Ono has worked the counter for seven decades. Reservations only through a hotel concierge or by introduction.
Tsukamoto Sogyo Building B1F, 4-2-15 Ginza, Chuo City, Tokyo 104-0061
View on Google Maps ↗Harajuku Gyozaro
4.2
Gyoza · Harajuku
Two things on the menu — boiled or fried gyoza, six pieces for a few hundred yen. Cash, counter seats, a permanent queue on Meiji-dori.
6-2-4 Jingumae, Shibuya City, Tokyo 150-0001
View on Google Maps ↗Glitch Coffee & Roasters
4.5
Specialty coffee · Kanda
Light-roast single origins poured over at the bar, served in wine glasses so you smell it first. The Jinbocho original is the one to visit.
3-16 Kanda Nishikicho, Chiyoda City, Tokyo 101-0054
View on Google Maps ↗% Arabica Arashiyama
4.3
Coffee stand · Kyoto
A white-tiled counter on the Katsura River bank facing Togetsukyo Bridge. Get a latte and walk the bamboo grove before the buses arrive.
3-47 Sagatenryuji Susukinobabacho, Ukyo Ward, Kyoto 616-8385
View on Google Maps ↗Café de l'Ambre
4.4
Kissaten · Ginza
Open since 1948 and dedicated to aged coffee — some beans stored for decades. Dark wood, no wifi, no hurry.
8-10-15 Ginza, Chuo City, Tokyo 104-0061
View on Google Maps ↗Fuglen Tokyo
4.3
Coffee & cocktails · Tomigaya
Oslo roaster in a mid-century Shibuya back street: filter coffee by day, aquavit cocktails after dark, vintage Norwegian furniture throughout.
1-16-11 Tomigaya, Shibuya City, Tokyo 151-0063
View on Google Maps ↗History & Culture
Japan's court culture took shape in Heian-kyo — today's Kyoto — after the capital moved there in 794. Poetry, painting and the tea aesthetic developed under an aristocracy that rarely left the city, while real power drifted to the provincial warrior clans.
From 1603 the Tokugawa shoguns ruled from Edo and closed the country to most foreign contact for over two centuries. When Commodore Perry's ships forced the ports open in 1853, the response was extraordinarily fast: the Meiji Restoration of 1868 dismantled the samurai class and rebuilt Japan as an industrial state within a generation.
Post-war reconstruction produced the world's first high-speed railway in 1964, the same year Tokyo hosted the Olympics. Both stories are still visible on the ground — a wooden temple gate on one block, a maglev test track an hour away.
Learn More About Japan's History →794–1185 · Heian
The court at Heian-kyo. Murasaki Shikibu writes The Tale of Genji around 1010.
1185–1573 · Kamakura & Muromachi
Shogun rule, Zen, the Mongol invasions of 1274 and 1281, then civil war.
1603–1868 · Edo
Two and a half centuries of peace, closed borders, ukiyo-e and kabuki.
1868–1912 · Meiji
Railways, conscription, a constitution in 1889, and the end of the samurai.
1945– · Post-war to Reiwa
Reconstruction, the Shinkansen, and a technology export economy.
Detail page
A chronological timeline from the earliest pottery cultures of the archipelago to the Reiwa era, with the dates and events that shaped what travellers see today.
Jomon
c. 14,000–300 BCE
Hunter-gatherer communities produce cord-marked pottery among the oldest ceramics known anywhere. The Sannai-Maruyama site in Aomori preserves a large settlement occupied for roughly 1,700 years.
Yayoi
c. 300 BCE–300 CE
Wet-rice agriculture, bronze and iron arrive from the Asian mainland. Chinese chronicles describe a land of small kingdoms, one ruled by the shaman-queen Himiko.
Kofun & Asuka
c. 300–710
Enormous keyhole-shaped burial mounds mark a unifying Yamato state; the Daisen Kofun near Osaka is among the largest tombs on earth. Buddhism arrives from Baekje in the mid-6th century, and Prince Shotoku's Horyu-ji (607) still holds the world's oldest wooden buildings.
Nara
710–794
The first permanent capital is laid out at Heijo-kyo (Nara) on a Chinese grid plan. Emperor Shomu commissions the Great Buddha of Todai-ji, dedicated in 752, and the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki set down the earliest written histories.
Heian
794–1185
Emperor Kanmu moves the capital to Heian-kyo, present-day Kyoto, where it stays for over a thousand years. The Fujiwara regents dominate the court; kana script enables a literature written largely by women, including Murasaki Shikibu's Tale of Genji around 1010.
Kamakura
1185–1333
Minamoto no Yoritomo establishes the first shogunate at Kamakura after defeating the Taira. Zen Buddhism takes root among the warrior class, and typhoons help repel Mongol invasion fleets in 1274 and 1281.
Muromachi & Sengoku
1336–1600
The Ashikaga shoguns rule from Kyoto, patronising Noh theatre, ink painting, the tea ceremony and the villas that became Kinkaku-ji (1397) and Ginkaku-ji (1482). The Onin War of 1467 burns much of Kyoto and opens a century of warring states, ended by Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi.
Edo
1603–1868
Tokugawa Ieyasu wins at Sekigahara in 1600 and is named shogun in 1603, ruling from Edo. Sakoku policy from 1639 restricts foreign trade to Dutch and Chinese merchants at Nagasaki for over two centuries, while Edo grows past a million people and supports kabuki, haiku and ukiyo-e prints by Hokusai and Hiroshige. Commodore Perry's squadron arrives in 1853.
Meiji
1868–1912
Imperial rule is restored and the capital renamed Tokyo. Feudal domains become prefectures, samurai privileges are abolished, Japan's first railway opens between Shimbashi and Yokohama in 1872, and the Meiji Constitution takes effect in 1890.
Taisho & early Showa
1912–1945
Urban middle-class culture and party politics expand, interrupted by the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923. Militarism grows through the 1930s and ends in the Pacific War, the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and surrender in August 1945.
Post-war Showa
1945–1989
A new constitution takes effect in 1947. Rapid growth follows: the Tokaido Shinkansen and the Tokyo Olympics both open in 1964, Expo '70 lands in Osaka, and Japanese electronics and cars reach global markets by the 1980s.
Heisei & Reiwa
1989–present
The asset bubble collapses in 1991 and slow growth follows. The Tohoku earthquake and tsunami of March 2011 reshape energy policy. Emperor Naruhito's accession in May 2019 begins the Reiwa era; Tokyo hosts a spectator-free Olympics in 2021.
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