Japan Fall Foliage Map 2026: The Autumn Leaves Forecast by Region

Colour moves down the country from Hokkaido in the north to Kyushu in the south, falling from the mountains to the plains as it goes. The map sets out where it stands by the second forecasts of the season, issued by the Japan Meteorological Corporation on 1 October and by Weathernews on 8 October; the table beneath it carries every figure, with its source.

Sapporo 4 NovOnuma Park 26 OctLake Towada 27 OctSendai 24 NovNikko 23 OctTokyo 28 NovKanazawa 22 NovKyoto, Arashiyama 24 NovDaisen 2 NovFukuoka 7 DecKirishima 11 Nov

• By the end of October
• 1 to 15 November
• 16 to 30 November
• December

Two forecasters issue Japan's kōyō forecasts. Weathernews, a private forecaster that also runs the country's day-to-day weather reporting, tracks close to 1,200 mapped viewing spots and refines its dates through the autumn as leaf-turn reports arrive from the ground. The Japan Meteorological Corporation (JMC), a separate commercial forecaster, calculates modelled dates for roughly 700 locations from tree phenology and temperature records. Each has now issued two forecasts this season; Weathernews' third is due in late October and the Japan Meteorological Corporation's third in early November.

Both track the same three points. First colour, irozuki, is the earliest visible change on a tree. Best viewing, migoro, is the run of days at fullest colour; Weathernews counts it from the day about seven in ten of the trees at a spot have turned until the leaves begin to fall. Leaf fall, rakuyō, is when the display is over. Every date here marks the start of best viewing.

The long summer set the pattern. Japan's summer of 2026 finished 1.02 degrees Celsius above the 1991 to 2020 average nationwide, the fifth-warmest June to August since records began in 1898. Cold air reaching Hokkaido from late August then turned the mountains on time, so the places that usually reach their best by mid-October have done so at about their usual dates. A warm autumn to come slows the turn below them, and Weathernews expects the places that usually reach their best from late October onward to come somewhat later than usual.

Hokkaido turned first and brightest. The high ground at Asahidake in Daisetsuzan National Park has already had its best and lost its leaves, and Weathernews reports the most vivid colour on the island in several years after a sunny September. Onuma Park, below Hokkaido Komagatake near Hakodate, follows from around 26 October, and Sapporo's maples around 4 November, three days earlier than the September forecast. In Tohoku, the shore of Lake Towada reaches its best from around 27 October, and Sendai around 24 November.

The high valleys run weeks ahead of the capital. Kamikochi, in the Northern Alps, has been at its best since around 13 October, and Nikko's Iroha-zaka, the forty-eight hairpins that climb to Lake Chuzenji, from around 23 October, eight days earlier than Weathernews first forecast. Tokyo's maples follow around 28 November and its ginkgo around 26 November. Neither forecaster gives a separate date for Hakone or the Fuji Five Lakes; the momiji festival at Mount Fuji is fixed for 7 to 29 November 2026 by the local tourism federation, a date set independently of the forecast.

Nikko luxury tours: the Toshogu and Lake Chuzenji →

Kyoto closes the season later than almost anywhere else in Honshu. Why a basin ringed by hills should be among the last places in the country to turn is a question of geography answered at length in The Foliage Front. The two forecasters read the city differently: Weathernews gives Arashiyama's own maples from around 24 November, while the Japan Meteorological Corporation's citywide figure, which takes in the temple gardens across the city such as Tofuku-ji and Eikan-do, lands around 11 December, six days later than its long-run average. The two figures bracket the season, and each garden falls somewhere within it. Nara has no separate figure; its temples usually run within a few days of Kyoto. Osaka's maples come around 4 December and Kanazawa's Kenroku-en from around 22 November.

The colour reaches the Inland Sea and Kyushu last. Daisen, the great volcano of Tottori, is at its best from around 2 November and Kirishima, on the border of Kagoshima and Miyazaki, from around 11 November. Miyajima follows from around 19 November and Hiroshima itself around 28 November, and the castle ruins at Akizuki from around 30 November, with Fukuoka's city maples around 7 December.

These are the long-run averages the Japan Meteorological Corporation measures each year against. For any autumn further ahead, they are the surest guide.

• Sapporo: maples around 28 October, ginkgo around 4 November.
• Aomori: maples around 13 November, ginkgo around 2 November.
• Sendai: maples around 21 November, ginkgo around 23 November.
• Tokyo: maples around 28 November, ginkgo around 23 November.
• Kanazawa: maples around 24 November, ginkgo around 10 November.
• Kyoto: maples around 5 December, ginkgo around 24 November.
• Osaka: maples around 1 December, ginkgo around 22 November.
• Hiroshima: maples around 22 November, ginkgo around 15 November.
• Fukuoka: maples around 1 December, ginkgo around 20 November.
• The high ground (Daisetsuzan, Kamikochi, Nikko): mid-September to late October, the higher the earlier.

When do the autumn leaves peak in Japan in 2026?

In the mountains, now: Nikko from around 23 October and Lake Towada from around 27 October. In the cities, late: Tokyo's maples around 28 November, Kyoto's Arashiyama from around 24 November and the temple gardens across Kyoto around 11 December, by the forecasts of 1 and 8 October 2026.

Is there a fall foliage map of Japan for 2026?

Yes. The map above sets out the forecast best-viewing dates for eleven places from Hokkaido to Kyushu, and the table beneath it gives twenty-four, each with its forecaster and date of release.

Which forecaster is more accurate, JMC or Weathernews?

Neither has a consistent edge. Where they differ, as they do for Kyoto this year, the best of the colour usually falls within the range the two give.

Read why Kyoto turns last: The Foliage Front → (opens in a new tab)

More of the Japan Edition on Japan's seasons → (opens in a new tab)

Japan fall foliage tours, 2027 →

The north turns first, and it is the north that The Autumn Leaves Tour of Northern Japan follows, from 2 to 13 November 2027, down the spine of the country from the mountains above Sapporo to the valleys of Yamagata. Its days are spent where the map above begins: walking the fourteen kilometres of the Oirase Stream, waterfall by waterfall, under beech and maple, with the car waiting along the way; two nights at Nyuto Onsen, where a milky sulphur spring has received travellers for more than three centuries in a beech forest; a private wooden boat down the Mogami River, through the canyon Basho descended in 1689; and two nights in the gas-lit wooden street of Ginzan Onsen.

It is limited to 8 guests, with first-class seats on the shinkansen between the regions and its Tour Directors taking care of every arrangement, through the Japan most visitors to the autumn never reach. For Kyoto among the maples, The Autumn Leaves Tour of Japan travels from Tokyo to Osaka from 23 November to 4 December 2027.