Photo by Zhaitengli, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0)
🇯🇵 Japan · Osaki, Miyagi Prefecture, Tohoku
Photo by Zhaitengli, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0)
🇯🇵 Japan · Osaki, Miyagi Prefecture, Tohoku
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📅 Established
over 1,000 years ago
✓ Verified on 2026-07-28
Naruko Onsen is the largest of five hot spring communities that make up Naruko Onsenkyo (with Higashi-Naruko, Kawatabi, Nakayamadaira, and Onikobe) in Osaki, Miyagi Prefecture, inside Kurikoma Quasi-National Park. It has more than 1,000 years of recorded history and was one of the 'three hot springs of Oshu' along with Akiu and Iizaka Onsen. Roughly 400 individual springs feed the town, and sources state that eight of Japan's ten officially recognized hot-spring water types occur here, including alkaline and sulfur waters. One notable spring, Taki-no-Yu, has its own thousand-year history and produces a slightly acidic, milky-white water. The poet Matsuo Basho passed through the area, an episode recorded in his travel journal Oku no Hosomichi.
Naruko Onsen has documented use stretching back over a millennium and was traditionally grouped with Akiu and Iizaka as one of the 'three hot springs of Oshu' in the historic Tohoku region. The 17th-century haiku poet Matsuo Basho passed through the area during the journey recorded in his travel diary Oku no Hosomichi.
The town is also Japan's center for kokeshi wooden dolls, home to the Japan Kokeshi Museum and around 80 full-time kokeshi craftsmen, a tradition historically tied to the hot spring resort trade.
Websitewww.naruko.gr.jp/
AddressNaruko-Onsen-aze Yumoto 2-2, Osaki, Miyagi 989-6100, Japan