Kyushu is Japan's third largest island, located southwest of the main island Honshu. An early center of Japanese civilization, Kyushu offers many historic treasures, modern cities and natural beauty.
Fukuoka is Kyushu's largest and one of Japan's ten most populated cities.
Nagasaki is an attractively situated port city on the island of Kyushu and the capital of Nagasaki Prefecture.
As one of Japan's closest port cities to the Asian mainland, Nagasaki has played a prominent role in foreign trade relations for many centuries and was the most important of only a very few ports open to restricted numbers of foreign traders during Japan's period of isolation.
In more recent history, Nagasaki became the second city after Hiroshima to be destroyed by an atomic bomb towards the end of World War II.
The Nagasaki Peace Park commemorates the atomic bombing of Nagasaki of August 9, 1945, which destroyed wide parts of the city and killed ten thousands of inhabitants.
In the park stand the massive Peace Statue as well as various other memorials. A monument around a black pillar marks the atomic explosion's epicenter in the nearby Hypocenter Park and stores the name list of bomb victims.
Above the park stands the sobering Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum.
Mount Aso (阿蘇山, Aso-san) is an active volcano in the center of Kyushu. Its ancient caldera ranks among the world's largest, with a diameter of up to 25 kilometers and a circumference of over 100 kilometers.
The huge caldera contains the town of Aso and several volcanic peaks, including Nakadake, whose spectacular, active crater is easily accessible to tourists by toll road or ropeway.
Note that the crater area is often partially and sometimes completely closed off to visitors due to poisonous volcanic gases. Gases can be intense even when the area is open, and people with respiratory problems should refrain from seeing the crater.
Yakushima is a subtropical island off the southern coast of Kyushu and part of Kagoshima Prefecture. It is covered by an extensive cedar forest that contains some of Japan's oldest living trees. Trees more than 1000 years old are affectionately called yakusugi (a combination of Yakushima and the Japanese word for cedar, sugi), the most ancient of which may be over 7000 years old.
The island's cedar forests were logged extensively throughout history. Their most common use was to make cedar shingles during the Edo Period. Today the forests are a national park and some areas were declared a UNESCO World Natural Heritage Site in 1993.
Yakushima has become a destination for people who love nature and the outdoors, with lots of hiking, camping and nature watching all around the island. However there are many hotels and restaurants along the island's well developed coast, so you can rough it during the day yet spend your nights in comfort.
As a subtropical island, Yakushima sees lots of rain throughout the year, so much that the locals say it rains "35 days a month". While that may be an exaggeration, it does rain here often although sometimes only lightly or for short periods of time. In the island's mountainous interior, which reaches nearly 2000 m high, the rain can become heavy snow in the winter and hiking during this time is inadvisable.
Fukuoka is Kyushu's largest and one of Japan's ten most populated cities.
Because of its closeness to the Asian mainland (closer to Seoul than to Tokyo), Fukuoka has been an important harbor city for many centuries and was chosen by the Mongol invasion forces as their landing point in the 12th century.
Today's Fukuoka is the product of the fusion of two cities in the year 1889, when the port city of Hakata and the former castle town of Fukuoka were united into one city called Fukuoka. Hakata remains the name of one of Fukuoka's central districts and of the main railway station.
Now a small city just outside of Fukuoka, Dazaifu used to be the administrative center of Kyushu from around the 8th to the 12th century. The most famous among Dazaifu's historic sights is the Dazaifu Tenmangu, the first of several thousands of shrines dedicated to Tenjin across Japan.
Nagasaki is an attractively situated port city on the island of Kyushu and the capital of Nagasaki Prefecture.
As one of Japan's closest port cities to the Asian mainland, Nagasaki has played a prominent role in foreign trade relations for many centuries and was the most important of only a very few ports open to restricted numbers of foreign traders during Japan's period of isolation.
In more recent history, Nagasaki became the second city after Hiroshima to be destroyed by an atomic bomb towards the end of World War II.
The Nagasaki Peace Park commemorates the atomic bombing of Nagasaki of August 9, 1945, which destroyed wide parts of the city and killed ten thousands of inhabitants.
In the park stand the massive Peace Statue as well as various other memorials. A monument around a black pillar marks the atomic explosion's epicenter in the nearby Hypocenter Park and stores the name list of bomb victims.
Above the park stands the sobering Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum.
Mount Aso (阿蘇山, Aso-san) is an active volcano in the center of Kyushu. Its ancient caldera ranks among the world's largest, with a diameter of up to 25 kilometers and a circumference of over 100 kilometers.
The huge caldera contains the town of Aso and several volcanic peaks, including Nakadake, whose spectacular, active crater is easily accessible to tourists by toll road or ropeway.
Note that the crater area is often partially and sometimes completely closed off to visitors due to poisonous volcanic gases. Gases can be intense even when the area is open, and people with respiratory problems should refrain from seeing the crater.
Yakushima is a subtropical island off the southern coast of Kyushu and part of Kagoshima Prefecture. It is covered by an extensive cedar forest that contains some of Japan's oldest living trees. Trees more than 1000 years old are affectionately called yakusugi (a combination of Yakushima and the Japanese word for cedar, sugi), the most ancient of which may be over 7000 years old.
The island's cedar forests were logged extensively throughout history. Their most common use was to make cedar shingles during the Edo Period. Today the forests are a national park and some areas were declared a UNESCO World Natural Heritage Site in 1993.
Yakushima has become a destination for people who love nature and the outdoors, with lots of hiking, camping and nature watching all around the island. However there are many hotels and restaurants along the island's well developed coast, so you can rough it during the day yet spend your nights in comfort.
As a subtropical island, Yakushima sees lots of rain throughout the year, so much that the locals say it rains "35 days a month". While that may be an exaggeration, it does rain here often although sometimes only lightly or for short periods of time. In the island's mountainous interior, which reaches nearly 2000 m high, the rain can become heavy snow in the winter and hiking during this time is inadvisable.
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