Language · 11 published
Country guide
Around three quarters of Japan is mountain and forest, which pushes almost everyone onto the eastern coastal plains and makes the country far narrower in practice than 377,975 km2 suggests. Forty-seven prefectures, eight traditional regions and more than 14,000 smaller islands, and yet a first visit usually runs along a single rail corridor with Tokyo at one end and Kyoto and Osaka at the other. Tokyo is the capital and largest city of a country of almost 123 million people. Hokkaido in the north and Okinawa in the south are different climates rather than day trips, and both need their own week.
Reviewed by Elena Voss · Roavina Travel Editor
Every city catalogued in this country so far, ranked by how much there is to see.
Photograph · Morio · CC BY-SA 3.0
Photograph · Martin Falbisoner · CC BY-SA 4.0
Photograph · Martin Falbisoner · CC BY-SA 4.0
Ranked by importance — sitelinks, pageviews and heritage status, not editor preference.
14 places match
Category
Typical visit duration
京都国際マンガミュージアム
Kyoto International Manga Museum is a cultural institution devoted to manga, Japan’s influential form of comics and graphic storytelling. It occupies a former elementary school building, giving the visit an architectural layer alongside the collection.
京都国立博物館
The Kyoto National Museum is one of Japan's major national museums, established to preserve and exhibit cultural properties connected to Kyoto's long history as the former imperial capital.
京都市美術館
The Kyoto City KYOCERA Museum of Art is a municipal art museum located in Kyoto, Japan. It was established to preserve and exhibit artworks relevant to the city's cultural heritage.
京都府京都文化博物館
The Museum of Kyoto introduces the city through its long history as Japan’s imperial capital and a centre of culture, craft, religion, and political life.
大阪市立科学館
The Osaka Science Museum is a hands-on science museum and planetarium located in Osaka, Japan. It is separately ticketed from other attractions. The museum focuses on interactive exhibits designed to engage visitors directly with scientific concepts.
国立国際美術館
The National Museum of Art, Osaka is a modern art museum located on Nakanoshima, an island in central Osaka. The museum is a national institution housing a government collection.
チームラボ プラネッツ
teamLab Planets TOKYO is a digital art museum operated by the art collective teamLab in the Toyosu district of Tokyo. The immersive installation invites visitors to walk barefoot through various spaces where digital artworks respond to human presence.
京都鉄道博物館
The Kyoto Railway Museum is a railway museum located in Kyoto, Japan. It is dedicated to the history and technology of Japanese railways.
大阪中之島美術館
Nakanoshima Museum of Art, Osaka is a modern and contemporary art museum located on Nakanoshima, a central sandbank between the Dojima and Tosabori rivers. The museum opened as a major independently entered institution with its own collection and exhibition programme.
細見美術館
Hosomi Museum is a private art museum located in Kyoto, Japan. It houses a significant collection of Japanese and East Asian art, with particular strength in works from the pre-modern period.
大阪くらしの今昔館
The Osaka Museum of Housing and Living is a municipal museum in Osaka, Japan. It presents the history of urban life and housing in Osaka from the Edo period through the early Showa era.
teamLab Borderless Museum
teamLab Borderless is a digital art museum in Tokyo created by the interdisciplinary art collective teamLab. The permanent installation occupies a substantial indoor space and presents immersive artworks that dissolve boundaries between visitor and art, and between individual works.
樂美術館
The Raku Museum in Kyoto is devoted to the Raku tradition of Japanese ceramics.
Source: OpenStreetMap contributors, Wikidata ·
Ten to fourteen days supports four or five days in Tokyo, three or four in Kyoto, and two or three in Osaka. Add Nara or Himeji only after those bases have enough time, and avoid turning every rail stop into a hotel change.
Japan's visa exemption or visa requirement depends on passport and travel purpose. Confirm the current rule through Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs or the embassy responsible for the traveller's residence.
The Tokaido Shinkansen links Tokyo, Kyoto, and Osaka, while local rail and buses cover city travel. An IC card simplifies many local journeys but does not replace every reserved long-distance ticket, and luggage forwarding can reduce friction between bases.
March to May and October to November are broad options for the main-island route, with blossom and autumn periods creating concentrated demand. Confirm regional weather and reservations for the exact cities rather than assuming one national season behaves uniformly.
Japan uses the yen (JPY). Electronic payment is common but not universal, so carry some yen for smaller businesses, ticket machines, or rural transport without assuming that one stored-value card works for every purchase.
Japan's emergency numbers are 110 for police and 119 for fire or ambulance. Type A sockets operate at 100 V, which is lower than in the other wave-A countries, and mains tap water is recorded as safe.
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