[VILLAGE Report vol.6] A Land with 5,094 Hot Spring Sources and Japan’s Largest Output | Oita Prefecture

Northeast from Kumamoto. This time, we have a village that can be described in numbers.

5,094 and 293,610

According to official data from Oita Prefecture, as of March 31, 2025, the number of hot spring sources is 5,094, and the output is 293,610 liters per minute. both ranking first in Japan. There are 16 municipalities with hot springs.

290,000 liters every minute. Converted to a single day, enough water to fill hundreds of school swimming pools continues to gush from underground even at this very moment.

A basket for hot spring guests became a national craft

Beppu bamboo craft is, Oita Prefecture's only nationally designated Traditional Craft Product in total.

Its origin was not as a precious craft. Long-stay hot spring guests sought kitchen utensils here for self-catering. That demand created the production area.

Something that began as an everyday tool becomes a craft recognized by the nation. This is a pattern we will see many times in this series. Hasami ware was the same, as was Koishiwara ware.

The prefecture is training successors

In Beppu City, there is the Oita Prefectural Bamboo Craft Training Center where young makers learn the craft. At the city's Beppu City Traditional Bamboo Crafts Center, visitors can see works and techniques.

In the world of traditional crafts, where people keep saying there are no successors, having a public training institution is not a small thing. Having a place to learn means reaching out a hand as if to say, come in.

Telling Japan's number one as Japan's number one

The people of a place tend to speak most modestly about being number one in Japan. "We're nothing special," they say.

But if it is not communicated, it is the same as not existing. We will take on the role of telling it.

Next issue, we head to Miyazaki, the town that makes 90% of Japan's bamboo bows.

References: Oita Prefectural Government, "Hot Spring Data" and "Beppu Bamboo Craft"; Beppu City, "Oita Prefectural Bamboo Craft Training Center"; Oita Prefecture official tourism site

—The Value Village Editorial Team

Photo: Jean-Pierre Dalbéra / CC BY 2.0 (Wikimedia Commons)