Kochi

Flavour

G

Vegetables and beans

Guru Ni

Flavour

K

Fish and shellfish

Katsuo Tataki

Flavour

K

Grilled

Kochi Yatai Gyoza

Flavour

M

Fish and shellfish

Mushidai

Flavour

N

Noodles

Nabeyaki Ramen

Flavour

N

Sushi

Nichiyoichi Inaka Zushi

Flavour

R

Vegetables and beans

Ryukyu Sunomono

Flavour

S

Sushi

Saba Sugatazushi

Flavour

S

Fish and shellfish

Sawachi Ryori

Flavour

T

Pickles and ferments

Tosa Honkarebushi

Flavour

T

Hot pots and soups

Tsugani Jiru

Flavour

U

Fried

Utsubo Karaage

Trade

A

Primary industry / Commuter belt

Aki Doi Kakuchu Samurai Quarter

There is a handmade clock tower standing among the fields.

Trade

I

Producing region

Ino Tosa Washi Papermaking

Some of the paper made in Tosa is thin enough to see light through.

Trade

T

Producing region

Tosa Uchi-hamono Forges

The shape is forged rather than pressed from a die.

Trade

K

Primary industry

Kiragawa Water-shedding Tile Walls

There are rows of small tiled ledges running across the walls.

Event

I

Ichijo Taisai

A memory of people who fled here from the capital, checked e…

Event

A

Akiba Matsuri (Niyodogawa)

Two hundred people spend a whole day walking a mountain path.

Event

Y

Yosakoi Festival

The naruko clappers rattle in the hand.

Event

K

Kochi Sunday Market

Every Sunday morning, the boulevard leading to Kochi Castle…

Event

S

Shimanto River Canoe Experience

The Shimanto is called Japan's last truly clear river, and t…

Event

T

Tosa Washi: Making Paper at the Source of Japan's Finest

Tosa washi is made from the water of the Niyodo River system…

Event

T

Tosa Shimizu: A Few Days in the Life of a Fisherman

The fishing boats leave before dawn.

Event

T

Tosa Kochi Fireworks Festival

This is the herald of the Yosakoi.

Event

K

Usually September to October

Kure Hachimangu Autumn Festival

At midnight, it leaves the house.

Event

B

Peak color early to late November

Befu-kyo

The viewing period at Befu-kyo is posted as early to late No…

Event

N

Peak color mid Nov

Nakatsu Gorge

Nakatsu gorge is known for the colour of its water, which is…

Event

K

Peak bloom late March to mid April

Kagamino Park Cherry Blossoms

The park's cherry trees run on into a university.

Event

M

Peak bloom late March

Makino Park Cherry Blossoms

For most cherry sites the beginning is vague.

Island

沖

沖の島

The ferry from Katashima Port takes the better part of an hour, and by the time the granite cliffs come into view, the mainland feels much further than the distance traveled.

Island

鵜

鵜来島

The ferry leaves Katashima Port twice a day, in the early morning and the middle of the afternoon, and there is no other way on or off.

Onsen

B

Befukyo Onsen

Onsen

Y

Yosakoi Onsen

Onsen

K

Kitagawa Onsen

Onsen

M

Matsuhagawa Onsen

Onsen

K

Kuwatayama Onsen

Onsen

A

Ashizuri Onsen

Onsen

T

Tosaryu Onsen

Onsen

Y

Yoi Onsen

Onsen

U

Umaji Onsen

Town

a

akishi

The洞窟 at Ioki cuts back into a hillside of sea-formed rock, its walls draped in ferns — some forty species catalogued as a natural monument.

Town

i

inochou

Paper mulberry fiber, water, and patience — these are the materials that shaped Ino-cho long before it became a commuter town beside Kochi City.

Town

u

umajimura

Yuzu grows here because almost nothing else can.

Town

o

ookawamura

The road into Okawa-mura narrows as the mountains close in, the Yoshino River audible before it is visible.

Town

o

ootsukichou

The road into Otsuki follows the coastline closely enough that you can smell the Pacific before you see it.

Town

o

ootoyochou

The forest begins almost immediately after the train slows into Ōtaguchi Station — cedar pressing close on both sides, the air noticeably cooler, the light filtered into something thin and green.

Town

o

ochichou

Three rivers meet in the mountains of Kochi's interior — the Niyodo, the Sakaoré, and the Yanase — and the confluence gives Ochi-cho its particular geography: wide, green, and quietly hemmed in by ridgelines.

Town

k

kamishi

Forests cover most of Kami City's land — cedar and cypress pressing close to the roads, the air carrying resin and river-damp in equal measure.

Town

k

kitagawamura

The scent of yuzu moves through Kitagawa-mura before anything else announces it — sharp, citric, present in the air near the processing sheds and in the gift boxes stacked at roadside stops.

Town

k

kuroshiochou

The black pine forest at Irino Matsubara runs the full length of the coast, a dense windbreak planted centuries ago by a retainer of the warlord Chōsokabe.

Town

g

geiseimura

The two stations of the Tosa Kuroshio Railway's Gomen-Nahari Line — Nishiwake and Washoku — mark the entry points into Geisei, a village that runs narrow from mountain ridge to shoreline along Tosa Bay.

Town

k

kouchishi

The trams of とさでん交通 run along streets wide enough to feel unhurried, stopping near market stalls where vendors have been laying out vegetables since before most cities wake.

Town

k

kounanshi

The ごめん・なはり line runs close to the Tosa coastline, and by the time the train slows into あかおか station, the smell of salt is already present.

Town

s

sakawachou

The rice fields along the Yanase River sit quietly in the basin, ringed by the slopes of Bandan-mori and the other hills that press close on every side.

Town

s

shimantoshi

The grid of streets in central Shimanto City was not laid out by accident.

Town

s

shimantochou

Colorful carp streamers cross the Shimanto River each spring, strung bank to bank above the current — not as spectacle, but as a fixture of the calendar, the way school sports days are.

Town

s

sukumoshi

The ferry moves out through Sukumo Bay in the early morning, and the water is almost flat.

Town

s

susakishi

The smell of the port arrives before the town does — salt, fish, the particular heaviness of an active wharf.

Town

t

tanochou

Salt dries on flat beds close to the water's edge, and the smell of the sea is never far from the main street.

Town

t

tsunochou

The road into Tsuno-cho climbs through cedar and broadleaf forest until the trees thin and the ground opens into the limestone plateau of Shikoku Karst.

Town

t

touyouchou

The road comes in along the coast, pressed between the Pacific and the ridgeline, with almost no flat ground to spare.

Town

t

tosashi

Light falls on Tosa-shi with unusual insistence — the kind of steady, pressing sunlight that makes shadows sharp even in winter.

Town

t

tosashimizushi

The road to Ashizuri-misaki runs without a train line or expressway to ease the approach — just prefecture road and coast, the Pacific opening up on one side, forested ridges pressing in on the other.

Town

t

tosachou

Rain falls heavily in this part of the Shikoku Mountains — the watershed that feeds the island's rivers begins somewhere in these forested ridges.

Town

n

nakatosachou

The smell of grilled fish reaches you before the market does.

Town

n

naharichou

The terminal station of the Gomen-Nahari Line sits at the edge of things — the rails end here, and beyond them the land slopes quickly toward Tosa Bay.

Town

n

nankokushi

Planes descend over rice paddies on the approach to Kōchi Airport — the one named, uniquely in Japan, for Sakamoto Ryōma — and already the landscape signals something layered.

Town

n

niyodogawachou

The Niyodogawa runs west to east through a valley so enclosed by forest that the sky appears as a narrow strip above the ridgeline.

Town

h

hidakamura

The Niyodo River feeds into a basin where tomatoes grow dense and low, their greenhouse rows stretching between mountain ridges that close in from both north and south.

Town

m

miharamura

The bus from Sukumo city climbs into the hills and the road narrows almost immediately, the lowland coast replaced by terraced slopes and the sound of water.

Town

m

murotoshi

The wave-sound at Mikurado-gawa — a sea cave eaten into the rock at Muroto-zaki — is recorded among Japan's hundred notable soundscapes.

Town

m

motoyamachou

The Yoshino River runs east through the center of Motoyama-cho, carving a narrow band of flat land between mountain walls that rise on both sides.

Town

y

yasudachou

The valley narrows quickly once the train pulls away from the coast.

Town

y

yusuharachou

Clouds sit in the valleys before the roads do.