Photo by Krorokeroro, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)
🇯🇵 Japan · Nakanojo, Agatsuma District, Gunma Prefecture, Kanto
Photo by Krorokeroro, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)
🇯🇵 Japan · Nakanojo, Agatsuma District, Gunma Prefecture, Kanto
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📅 Established
traditions date to the Kamakura period; Sekizenkan's Honkan built 1691
✓ Verified on 2026-07-28
Shima Onsen (四万温泉) lies along the upper Shima River in Nakanojo, Gunma Prefecture, and is traditionally ranked among Gunma's leading hot springs alongside Kusatsu and Ikaho. Local legend holds the waters have healed '40,000' (shima) illnesses since the Kamakura period, and the resort was designated Japan's first national health hot spring resort in 1954. Its best-known lodging, Sekizenkan, dates to 1691, when its Honkan building was constructed; it opened as an inn in 1694 and its wooden Honkan is Japan's oldest surviving hot spring bath structure, now a registered cultural property widely believed to have inspired the bathhouse in Studio Ghibli's Spirited Away. The waters are a sodium-calcium chloride-sulfate spring, colorless and clear.
Shima Onsen's hot springs have reportedly been used since the Kamakura period, tied to a local legend about healing 40,000 illnesses. It was formally designated Japan's first national health hot spring resort ('kokumin hoyo onsen') in 1954. Sekizenkan's Honkan building, built in 1691, is registered as a cultural property and is Japan's oldest surviving wooden hot spring bathhouse structure.
Websitenakanojo-kanko.jp/shima/en/
AddressShima, Nakanojo, Agatsuma District, Gunma 377-0601, Japan