Hamasaka Onsen-kyo — Spring Water Analysis, Temperature and Snowfall
浜坂温泉郷 · Hyogo
Hamasaka Onsen-kyo (浜坂温泉郷) is a nationally designated onsen town in Hyogo. We measured how much snow its winters bring, using the same method as for the 3,069 ski areas on this site.
How this place came to be
They were drilling for water to melt snow, and hit a hot spring instead.
In 1978, near the old Hamasaka town hall, a bore being sunk to supply the town's snow-melting system showed signs of hot water. A proper survey followed, and the spring was found. The place drilled because it gets so much snow — and the snow is why it has an onsen.
What happened next is unusual. In 1981 it was chosen as the first project under the Ministry of International Trade and Industry's programme for developing local energy, and built out as a district system for distributing geothermal water at constant temperature. Since June 1982 it has been piped from one control point to ordinary houses, a seaside recreation centre, a home for the elderly, municipal housing, and fifteen inns and guesthouses. The system can serve 1,200 households; 671 use it.
The district covers three areas. It faces the Sea of Japan along 18 km of coast, sits at the centre of the San'in Kaigan Geopark, and 46% of the town is designated parkland. Sea, mountains and hot water in one small town.
Winter is the onsen and the crab; summer is the beach. Nanagama, three kilometres inland, is a quiet farming hamlet on the river.
Sources: 環境省 浜坂温泉郷 国民保養温泉地計画書
Snowfall in winter
| Per season | 174 cm |
| Rank | 27 of 77 ranked onsen |
| Against the median of 77 | +56 cm median 118 cm |
| Winter to winter | 286 cm 38–324 cm, leanest to deepest of twelve |
Find a place to stay · Open in maps
"Find a place to stay" searches Rakuten Travel and contains advertising; we may earn a commission on bookings made through it. The snowfall figures and ranking are calculated independently of that.
We do not link to an official site. We have not verified URLs for all 79 towns, and guessing would send you somewhere wrong. They will be added once checked.
More places to look
Just the bath
Day passes for hot springs are sold through Asoview. Japanese only.
The list covers the whole prefecture — it cannot be narrowed to this town.
Hot springs nearby, as analysed
4 hot spring sources with published analyses lie within 3 km of the centre of this onsen town, nearest first.
| Source | Distance | Temperature | pH | Type | Analysed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 七釜温泉1号 | 0.8 km | 46.5℃ hot | — | — | 1962 |
| 七釜温泉3号 | 0.8 km | 31℃ lukewarm | — | — | 1961 |
| 二日市温泉 | 0.8 km | 43.5℃ hot | — | — | 1964 |
| 七釜温泉2号 | 1 km | 47℃ hot | — | — | 1966 |
These are analyses of hot spring sources, not a list of baths you can visit. They date from 1910 to 2005, many from decades ago, so today’s temperature and chemistry may differ. Names are as recorded in Japanese. Temperature and pH bands follow Japan’s standard for analysing hot springs.
Source: processed from the hot spring analysis data in the Geothermal Information Database (GRES-DB), Geological Survey of Japan, AIST
Worth seeing nearby
Places within 20 km of this onsen town, chosen from those most read about on Wikipedia, favouring places with an English Wikipedia article, and listed nearest first.
| Place | Type | Distance |
|---|---|---|
| Yumura Onsen湯村温泉 (兵庫県) | Hot spring town | 6.9 km |
| Amarube Viaduct余部橋梁 | Landmark | 9.3 km |
| Iwai Onsen岩井温泉 | Hot spring town | 11.4 km |
| 長楽寺 (兵庫県香美町) | Temple | 15 km |
| Uradome Coast浦富海岸 | Nature | 16.1 km |
| Ojiro小代区 | Old streets | 18.2 km |
Based on the Japanese Wikipedia lists of sights in each prefecture, as compiled in travel-log-data (CC BY-SA 4.0). English names from Wikidata (CC0). The content of this section is available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Ski areas nearby
Up to five within 40 km, straight-line, nearest first. Quality rank is out of the 397 Japanese ski areas.
| Ski area | Distance | Quality rank |
|---|---|---|
| Tajima Farm Park Ski Area | 11 km | 385 of 397 |
| Ojiro Ski Resort | 17 km | 329 of 397 |
| Hachikita Kogen | 21 km | 279 of 397 |
| UP Kannabe Ski Resort | 22 km | 426 of 397 |
| Mikata Snow Park | 23 km | 297 of 397 |
These snowfall figures are estimates
The snowfall shown here is an estimate produced by a weather model, not a record of what actually fell.
We compared it against 63 Japan Meteorological Agency weather stations to see how far off it is. On average it comes to about six tenths of the real figure — it runs low. And it runs low by different amounts in different places: some read barely a third of what was measured, others match almost exactly. Mountains tend to read lowest.
We tried scaling everything up by a fixed amount to correct for it. It barely helped, because the error differs from place to place.
So treat these numbers as a guide to roughly where somewhere sits, not a precise figure. There is no meaning in the gap between first and second, or between 30th and 35th. Large differences between regions are real and can be read as they are.
We considered correcting the figures against the observations. But this ranking covers 3,069 ski areas across ten countries, and only Japan can be checked against weather stations. Correcting Japan alone would lift Japanese resorts above the Alps and North America with nothing behind it. Every place here is measured the same way instead.
Where a nearby weather station can be used, we print what it actually recorded on that ski area's own page.