Japan consists of 6,852 islands, of which 421 are inhabited. The four main islands — Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu, and Shikoku — account for approximately 97% of the total land area. The remaining 6,800+ are an extraordinary archipelago of volcanic peaks, subtropical coral islands, remote fishing communities, abandoned lighthouses, and art installations. Most travellers never leave Honshu. Here is a guide to the islands that most deserve your time.
Honshu — The Main Island (Where Most Japan Trips Happen)
Honshu is the world's seventh largest island and the one containing Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, Hiroshima, and the majority of Japan's cultural landmarks. If you have been to Japan and visited Tokyo, Kyoto, and the Shinkansen corridor between them, you have seen a thin strip of the largest island. Honshu also contains the Japan Sea coast (crab, sake, and snow in winter), the mountainous Tohoku region (Matsushima bay, the Rias coast, traditional ryokans), and the Chugoku region leading toward Hiroshima. The standard tourist circuit samples Honshu thoroughly but the island rewards much deeper exploration.
Hokkaido — The Wild North
Hokkaido, Japan's northernmost main island, is the second largest and the least densely populated — the scale of wilderness relative to population is more comparable to Canada than to the rest of Japan. Sapporo, the main city, hosts the annual Sapporo Snow Festival — the world's largest winter festival by attendance, featuring enormous snow sculptures of buildings and famous monuments built by the Japanese Self-Defence Forces. The island's interior holds the extraordinary Daisetsuzan National Park — Japan's largest, a volcanic plateau of thermally active mountains with the densest population of brown bears in the country. Hokkaido's food culture is defined by seafood (the sea urchin, crab, and scallops served here are considered the country's finest), dairy products (Hokkaido butter, cheese, and milk chocolate are cult items across Japan), and corn (sweet corn is grown on vast plains and eaten on the cob year-round). In winter, the eastern Abashiri coast sees pack ice drift down from the Sea of Okhotsk — icebreaker tours to observe drift ice and its attendant seal and bird life are one of the most unusual winter experiences in Japan.
Kyushu — Volcanoes, Onsen, and a Different Japan
Kyushu, Japan's southernmost main island, has a character distinct from Honshu — warmer, more relaxed, more influenced by its proximity to China and Korea through centuries of trade. Fukuoka is now Japan's fastest-growing city — young, relatively cheap by Japanese standards, with outstanding food (Fukuoka is the origin of Hakata-style tonkotsu ramen). Beppu has the highest concentration of hot springs in Japan — the famous "hells" (jigoku) of Beppu are naturally boiling pools of different mineral compositions that are tourist attractions rather than bathing spots. Aso is one of the world's largest volcanic calderas, with an active central crater that can be observed from a rim walkway when conditions allow. Nagasaki is one of Japan's most historically layered cities — the site of the second atomic bomb (August 9, 1945) and one of the few ports open to foreign trade during Japan's 265 years of isolation (the Dutch were permitted a small trading post on the artificial island of Dejima, the only formal foreign contact Japan maintained).
Okinawa — The Sub-tropical Archipelago
The Okinawa Prefecture consists of 160 islands scattered across 1,000 km of ocean between Kyushu and Taiwan. The main island, Okinawa-honto, was the site of the Battle of Okinawa (April–June 1945), one of the bloodiest battles of the Pacific War. The island's culture is distinct from mainland Japan — the indigenous Ryukyuan civilisation (the Ryukyu Kingdom was an independent state until 1879) has its own language (Uchinaaguchi), music, cuisine (champuru — stir-fry dishes using bitter gourd; the Okinawan diet has been studied as a longevity model), and castle architecture. The outer Okinawan islands — Iriomote (90% jungle, mangroves, rare wildcats), Ishigaki (world-class diving on Manta Ray scramble), Yonaguni (the westernmost point of Japan, closer to Taiwan than to Okinawa main island) — are among the most pristine coral reef environments in Asia.
Naoshima — The Art Island
Naoshima, a small island in the Seto Inland Sea between Honshu and Shikoku, is one of the most extraordinary art destinations in the world — a 13km² island that has been transformed over 30 years by the Benesse Corporation and architect Tadao Ando into an open-air gallery of contemporary art. Ando's Chichu Art Museum (partly underground, built to minimise impact on the island's landscape) houses five Claude Monet water lily paintings in a room designed specifically for them, and three enormous James Turrell light installations. The Art House Project places art installations inside renovated traditional Japanese buildings in the island's old village. The Yayoi Kusama pumpkin sculpture on the southern pier has become one of the most photographed objects in Japan. The combination of the landscape, the architecture, and the quality of the art makes Naoshima unique — there is genuinely nothing else like it.
Yakushima — Where the Ancient Cedars Live
Yakushima, off the southern tip of Kyushu, is a UNESCO World Heritage island of extraordinary ecological significance. The island's interior mountains receive over 8,000mm of rainfall per year — one of the wettest places in Japan — and the resulting forest contains yakusugi cedars of extraordinary age: the famous Jomon Sugi is estimated at 2,170–7,200 years old (the dating debate continues) and at minimum is the oldest living organism in Japan. The forest is ancient, moss-covered, and vertiginously beautiful — Hayao Miyazaki is known to have visited Yakushima before creating "Princess Mononoke," and the forest clearly influenced the film's visual language.