Maruko Onsen-kyo — Spring Water Analysis, Temperature and Snowfall

The collective name for three spa villages along the Uchimura river southwest of Ueda in Nagano — Kakeyu, Oshio and Reisenji. Mt. Tokko rises to the north, the 2,000-metre Utsukushigahara plateau to the south. The group was designated a National Health Resort Hot Spring on 15 June 1956.

Kakeyu takes its name from a founding legend: the bodhisattva Manjushri took the form of a deer and showed a devout hunter where the water was. The Monju hall by the river is counted among the three great Manjushri halls of Japan and holds an image said to be carved by the monk Gyoki. When Gyoki's disciple Engyo brought the image here, the story goes, the spring was already flowing — which would put the founding some 1,200 years ago. About twenty inns still line the river, alongside Kakeyu Hospital, known for rehabilitation medicine.

Oshio is a hamlet on Route 254 with one inn left and one shared bathhouse. Takeda Shingen is said to have used the water for soldiers wounded at Kawanakajima, and it has been called one of "Shingen's hidden springs" ever since. During the war it was made the first branch of the Tokyo Shinagawa Army Hospital, and wounded soldiers were sent here. One closed inn has since reopened as a cafe.

Reisenji has four inns at the gate of Reisen Zen temple. Taira no Koremochi, returning to the capital after killing the demon of Togakushi, is said to have found the water here and rested his wounds in it; he founded the temple to protect the spring and opened it to the public. The novelist Saneatsu Mushanokoji stayed here often.

Up to about 1993 the three villages saw 650,000–700,000 visitors a year, most of them on company or group health trips. Those trips ended, and the numbers have fallen since.

Sources: 環境省 丸子温泉郷 国民保養温泉地計画書

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4 hot spring sources with published analyses lie within 3 km of the centre of this onsen town, nearest first.

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

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.

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.

Up to five within 40 km, straight-line, nearest first. Quality rank is out of the 397 Japanese ski areas.

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