Zao Onsen — Spring Water Analysis, Temperature and Snowfall
蔵王温泉 · Yamagata
Zao Onsen (蔵王温泉) is a nationally designated onsen town in Yamagata. 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
Zao sits at about 880 m on the western flank of the Zao mountains, and claims nineteen centuries. It used to be called Takayu, and together with Shinobu-Takayu in Fukushima and Shirabu-Takayu near Yonezawa it was known as one of the three great Takayu of the north.
The name has a story. Around the year 110, a retainer named Kibi-no-Tagayu, campaigning in the north under Yamato Takeru, was struck by a poisoned arrow and his whole body broke out in sores. He found water that tasted faintly of vinegar, bathed in it, and recovered within days. The spring was called Tagayu after him, and over time that became Takayu.
Through the Edo period this was the western climbing route to the Zao shrine, lined with lodgings for ascetics. When the Meiji government moved against Buddhist institutions the ascetics disappeared almost overnight and Zao went quiet again. Skiers only arrived in the twentieth century, once the mountain was promoted as good winter terrain.
Five source groups feed 46 springs, all of it flowing straight through — strongly acidic sulphur water. Walk the streets and you smell it. It has long been called a bath that makes your skin better.
The ski area above it, famous for its juhyo ice-covered trees, is reached by three ropeways from the town.
Sources: 環境省 蔵王温泉 国民保養温泉地計画書
Snowfall in winter
| Per season | 258 cm |
| Rank | 13 of 77 ranked onsen |
| Within prefecture | 4 of 8 in Yamagata |
| Against the median of 77 | +140 cm median 118 cm |
| Winter to winter | 228 cm 129–357 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
1 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 蔵王上の川 | 0.2 km | 64.6℃ hot | 1.3 acidic | sulphur, iron, acidic | — |
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Zaō Ropeway蔵王ロープウェイ | Landmark | 2.1 km |
| Mount Zaō蔵王連峰 | Mountain | 5 km |
| Okama御釜 (蔵王連峰) | Nature | 5.8 km |
| Kaminoyama Castle上山城 | Historic site | 10.6 km |
| Yamagata Station山形駅 | Landmark | 10.9 km |
| Yama-dera Temple立石寺 | Temple | 16.5 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Zao Onsen | 1 km | 82 of 397 |
| Zao Sarukura | 5 km | 169 of 397 |
| Zao Liza World | 5 km | 81 of 397 |
| Miyagi Zao Sumikawasu Snow Park | 9 km | 85 of 397 |
| Miyagi Zao Eboshi Resort | 11 km | 113 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.