Ueno Park and Ameyoko · Asakusa and Senso-ji · Meiji Shrine, Harajuku and Shibuya · Tsukiji Outer Market

Kiyomizu-dera and Higashiyama · Golden Pavilion and Ryoan-ji · Nijo Castle and Nishiki Market · Arashiyama

Osaka Castle · Kuromon Market · Shinsekai · Kaiyukan Aquarium

Ōdōri Park and the TV Tower · Sapporo Beer Museum · Nijō Market · Mount Moiwa

Seventeen temples, shrines and a castle from Japan's thousand-year imperial capital.

The one building left standing where the first atomic bomb exploded, kept as it was on 6 August 1945.

Japan's sacred mountain, 3,776 m of symmetrical volcano, with the shrines, lakes and pilgrim routes around it.

The White Heron Castle, the finest surviving early 17th-century Japanese castle.

A ryokan founded in 1484 in the Shuzenji hot spring town and run by the same family for ten generations, with a Noh stage on the pond that was moved from Tokyo and still hosts performances.

A 16-room ryokan on a wooded hillside in Yamashiro Onsen, designed by Sey Takeyama as plain, light-filled spaces, with an open-air hot spring bath in every room facing the forest garden.

A ryokan in Gora, Hakone, on the grounds of the former summer villa of an Imperial family member, with natural hot spring baths, kaiseki dining and 22 rooms.

A family-run inn in central Kyoto, on Fuyacho street in Nakagyo ward, that has taken guests for over 300 years. It has 18 tatami rooms with private gardens, and kaiseki dinner is served in the room.

Fifteen villas in a wooded setting near Niseko, each with its own indoor and outdoor hot spring bath fed by the inn's spring, and a northern take on kaiseki built on Hokkaido produce.

Takes floors 47 to 52 of the Toranomon Hills tower, with the lobby and Andaz Tavern restaurant on the 51st floor behind 16-foot windows, and deep soaking tubs in the rooms.

Rooms occupy floors 28 to 37 of a Shiodome tower overlooking Hamarikyu Gardens and Tokyo Bay, with a pool on the 29th floor that has views toward Skytree.

A small hotel of 70 rooms and nine suites on the Ninenzaka lane in Higashiyama, directly below Yasaka Pagoda, with tamo wood interiors and a teppanyaki restaurant called Yasaka.

Fills floors 39 to 52 of Kenzo Tange's Shinjuku Park Tower, with 171 rooms and Club on the Park, a two-storey skylit pool and spa complex of 2,100 square metres.

Opened in 2021 below the Takagamine mountains in northern Kyoto, on a site tied to the artist Hon'ami Koetsu's colony, with a year-round natural onsen thermal pool.