kyushukagoshima
Kagoshima
Kagoshima is the capital of Kagoshima Prefecture, at the southern end of the Kyushu region, a city on Kagoshima Bay facing the volcano of Sakurajima, and the old seat of the Shimazu lords of Satsuma.
- Prefecture
- Kagoshima
- Region
- Kyushu
- Journeys
- The Custom Tour of Japan
overview
A southern city on a blue bay, facing the great cone of Sakurajima across the water.
Kagoshima looks across its bay at Sakurajima, the mountain that shapes the city's view, its weather and its character. The comparison with Naples, a city facing Vesuvius across its own bay, is an old one, and the two became sister cities in 1960. The climate is warm, the light is southern, palms line the waterfront, and the people of Kagoshima are known across Japan for their directness and their hospitality.
For some seven hundred years the Shimazu family ruled Satsuma from here, one of the most powerful domains in Japan and among the most independent. Far from Edo, close to the trade routes of China and the Ryukyu Kingdom, Satsuma looked outwards. In the 1850s the lord Shimazu Nariakira built the first Western-style factories in Japan beside his garden at Sengan-en, and in 1865 Satsuma secretly sent a party of young men to study in Britain. Satsuma men, Saigo Takamori and Okubo Toshimichi above all, led the alliance that overthrew the shogun in 1868, and the story of modern Japan begins, in large part, in these streets.
Saigo Takamori's story ends on the hill of Shiroyama. In 1877, by then at odds with the government he had helped create, he led the Satsuma Rebellion, the last great samurai uprising, and died on that hill above the city. He remains Kagoshima's hero, his statue in military uniform standing below the hill, and the city keeps his memory with real affection.
Kagoshima is also one of the great food cities of Kyushu. Its black wagyu has taken the top prize at the national wagyu competition, its kurobuta, the black Berkshire pork, is prized above other pork in Japan, and its sweet potato shochu, Satsuma shochu, is protected by name like a wine of origin. The prefecture's distilleries number well over a hundred. Add kibinago, the small silver herring of the bay, served raw in fans on the plate, and shirokuma, a shaved ice heaped with fruit and condensed milk invented in the city.
see and do
What to see in Kagoshima
Sakurajima
The volcano across the bay, 1,117 metres at its northern peak, its slopes of dark rock and black pine. Once an island, it was joined to the Osumi Peninsula on the east in 1914, and some three thousand people live around its shore, growing the giant Sakurajima radish and the tiny komikan mandarin.
The Sakurajima ferry
A crossing of about fifteen minutes from the city to the island that runs day and night, with the mountain growing larger across the water and the city behind.
Yunohira Observatory
The highest point on Sakurajima open to visitors, at 373 metres, looking up at the summit on one side and across the bay to the whole city on the other.
The Nagisa foot onsen
A promenade on the shore of Sakurajima near the ferry port, with a foot onsen a hundred metres long beside the sea, facing the city across the water.
Sengan-en
The garden villa of the Shimazu lords, laid out in 1658 by the shore, which takes Sakurajima as its artificial hill and the bay as its pond: one of the great borrowed views of Japan. The residence, the bamboo groves and the stone lanterns are kept as they were.
Shoko Shuseikan
The stone machine factory of 1865 beside Sengan-en, now a museum of the Shimazu family and of Nariakira's industrial works, part of the World Heritage Site of the Meiji Industrial Revolution inscribed in 2015.
Satsuma kiriko
Cut glass in deep red, indigo and green, first made for Nariakira in the 1850s and lost after his death, then revived in 1985. The workshop beside Sengan-en shows the craftsmen cutting and polishing it by hand.
Shiroyama
The wooded hill above the city where Saigo Takamori made his last stand in 1877, with the cave where he spent his final days and an observatory looking across the city and the bay to Sakurajima.
Reimeikan and Tsurumaru Castle
The prefectural museum of history stands within the stone walls and moats of the Shimazu castle, its great Goromon gate rebuilt in 2020.
Museum of the Meiji Restoration
A museum by the Kotsuki River in Kajiya-cho, the district where Saigo and Okubo were born, telling the story of Satsuma's part in the making of modern Japan.
Former Residence of Foreign Engineers
A white wooden house of 1867 near Sengan-en, built for the British engineers who came to set up Satsuma's spinning mill, one of the oldest Western buildings in Japan.
Tenmonkan
The covered streets of shops, bars and dining at the centre of the city, where Kagoshima eats in the evening: black pork shabu-shabu, Kagoshima ramen and shochu by the glass.
Chiran
A town of samurai residences an hour south of the city, its street of stone walls and clipped hedges lined with seven gardens of the eighteenth century, several of them borrowing the hills behind as their view.
Miyama
A village about forty minutes west of the city where potters brought from Korea in 1598 settled and founded Satsuma ware, still made in the kilns of their descendants.
experiences
The best of Kagoshima
Sengan-en, at leisure
The garden of the Shimazu lords with a guide who knows its history, followed by Satsuma kiriko in the workshop next door and a quiet hour in the garden with tea and the volcano across the water.
Around Sakurajima
A day around the island by private car, from the observatories to the radish fields, the orchards and the villages of the shore, with the foot onsen by the sea at the end.
A shochu cellar
An afternoon at a shochu distillery, with the master distiller explaining sweet potato, koji and the clay pots in which the spirit ages, and a tasting of the distillery's oldest bottlings.
Black wagyu and black pork
Dinner of Kagoshima black wagyu or kurobuta shabu-shabu at a restaurant devoted to the beef and pork of the prefecture, with shochu poured warm in the old Satsuma way.
The samurai gardens of Chiran
A morning in the gardens of Chiran, small, clipped and exact, and a visit to a Satsuma ware potter in Miyama on the way back.
plan your visit
Kagoshima on a journey through Japan
- How long to stay
- Two nights in Kagoshima allow a day for Sengan-en and the city and another for Sakurajima; three let you add Chiran or Miyama.
- Getting there
- By the Kyushu Shinkansen from Hakata in Fukuoka in about an hour and twenty minutes, or direct from Shin-Osaka in under four hours. By air from Tokyo Haneda to Kagoshima Airport in about an hour and fifty minutes, then about forty minutes into the city by private car.
journeys
Kagoshima on a private journey
We bring guests to Kagoshima on the Custom Tour of Japan, created around your party alone, on your dates, with your own Tour Director.
questions
Kagoshima: questions answered
What is Kagoshima famous for?
Sakurajima, the volcano across the bay, the Shimazu garden of Sengan-en, and its part in the Meiji Restoration, along with black wagyu, kurobuta pork and sweet potato shochu.
How do you get to Sakurajima from Kagoshima?
By the Sakurajima ferry from the port near the centre of the city, a crossing of about fifteen minutes that runs day and night. A private car can travel on the ferry and then around the island.
How many days do you need in Kagoshima?
Two nights at the least: one day for Sengan-en, Shiroyama and the city, and one for Sakurajima. A third allows the samurai gardens of Chiran or the potters of Miyama.
How do you get from Fukuoka to Kagoshima?
By the Kyushu Shinkansen from Hakata Station to Kagoshima-Chuo in about an hour and twenty minutes on the fastest trains.
What is Sengan-en?
The garden villa of the Shimazu lords of Satsuma, laid out in 1658, which borrows Sakurajima and Kagoshima Bay as its view. Beside it stands the Shoko Shuseikan, part of a World Heritage Site.
Who was Saigo Takamori?
A samurai of Satsuma who led the overthrow of the shogun in 1868 and later the Satsuma Rebellion of 1877, in which he died on Shiroyama above Kagoshima. He is the city's great hero.
What should you eat in Kagoshima?
Kagoshima black wagyu, kurobuta pork shabu-shabu, kibinago sashimi, satsuma-age fish cakes, Kagoshima ramen and shirokuma shaved ice, with Satsuma shochu made from sweet potato.
Can Kagoshima be part of a private tour of Japan?
Yes. The Custom Tour of Japan is created around your party alone, on your dates, with your own Tour Director, and it can go anywhere in the country, Kagoshima included. If you would rather travel independently, the Expert Japan Itinerary plans every day for you.
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Kagoshima, planned for you.
Tell us when you would like to travel and what draws you to Kagoshima, and we will answer with a Custom Tour of Japan created around your party alone, or, if you would rather travel independently, an Expert Japan Itinerary that plans every day for you.