Okutsu Onsen — Spring Water Analysis, Temperature and Snowfall

In Kagamino, at the northern edge of Okayama near the Tottori border, on the headwaters of the Yoshii river. The Okutsu gorge downstream is among the best places in western Japan for autumn colour.

The written record goes back to a domain gazetteer, which says a warlord of the late 1500s healed a battle wound in this water. In the Edo period the lords of Tsuyama took it for their own cures, and the story goes that the bath was so good they put a lock on the door and shut everyone else out — the "key bath."

The town has a custom found almost nowhere else: washing laundry with the feet. Standing in the hot water that rises naturally at the river's edge, women trod their washing — and in the old days kept an eye out for bears and wolves while they did it. The rhythm of it earned the name "the laundry dance."

In 1962 a Shochiku film shot here made the place famous overnight. The novel behind it was written by an Okayama author who had come here often during the war to soak. A later film adaptation of a famous detective novel used the town as well.

There were sixteen inns here in the late 1960s. There are seven now. A ski area lies close by.

Sources: 環境省 奥津温泉 国民保養温泉地計画書

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11 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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