The Most Beautiful Places in Wakayama Prefecture
5 places · updated 14 October 2026
In short: By our ranking, the most beautiful places in Wakayama Prefecture are Mount Kōya, Nachi Falls and Okunoin Cemetery, Mount Kōya. The list covers 5 places. Last updated 14 October 2026.
Wakayama covers much of the Kii Peninsula, a steep, forested and very wet corner of Japan where mountains run almost straight into the Pacific. For more than a thousand years those mountains have been treated as sacred: Shinto worship of nature and esoteric Buddhism grew together here, and pilgrims from Kyoto walked the Kumano routes through cedar forest to reach shrines and temples. That layered landscape is recognised by UNESCO as the Sacred Sites and Pilgrimage Routes in the Kii Mountain Range.
Mount Kōya is its spiritual centre. The monk Kūkai founded a monastery on this high plateau in 816, and it became the heart of Shingon Buddhism, with dozens of temples still forming a town in the mountains. Its Okunoin Cemetery, the largest in Japan, lines a long path through ancient cedars with moss-covered gravestones and memorials, leading to Kūkai's mausoleum.
On the coast side, Nachi Falls drops 133 metres in a single plunge, the tallest such fall in Japan and itself an object of worship. Kumano Nachi Taisha, one of the three grand shrines of Kumano, stands on the slope beside it, and the vermilion three-storey pagoda of the neighbouring Seiganto-ji framed against the falls is one of the most recognisable views in the country. Near the peninsula's southern tip, Hashigui-iwa is a line of rock pillars stretching out to sea like the piers of an unfinished bridge, left standing as softer rock eroded around them.
In this list
| # | Place | Type | UNESCO |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mount Kōya | Pilgrimage site | ✓ |
| 2 | Nachi Falls | Waterfall | ✓ |
| 3 | Okunoin Cemetery, Mount Kōya | Cemetery | |
| 4 | Kumano Nachi Taisha | Shinto shrine | |
| 5 | Hashigui-iwa | Stack |
01 Mount Kōya
Japan · 38.3 km from Wakayama34.218° N 135.583° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Lianguanlun · CC BY 4.0 Mount Kōya is not a single peak but a high basin in the mountains of Wakayama Prefecture, a plain at about 800 metres ringed by eight summits.
02 Nachi Falls
Japan33.672° N 135.891° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Image by pen_ash from Pixabay At 133 metres, Nachi is Japan's tallest single-drop waterfall, but height isn't really why people have been coming here for over a thousand years. The falls themselves are the object of worship — not a shrine built near a waterfall, but the waterfall treated as the god.
Did you know? Nachi is traditionally ranked among Japan's three most famous waterfalls, together with Kegon Falls in Nikko and Fukuroda Falls in Ibaraki.
03 Okunoin Cemetery, Mount Kōya
Japan34.218° N 135.605° E
Image by yamabon from Pixabay Okunoin is the innermost sanctuary of Mount Kōya, the mountain monastery founded by the monk Kūkai, known posthumously as Kōbō Daishi. According to Shingon belief, Kūkai did not die in 835 but entered eternal meditation in his mausoleum here, where he awaits the coming of Maitreya, the Buddha of the future.
Did you know? Most of the graves are gorintō, five-tiered towers whose stacked shapes stand for earth, water, fire, wind and space.
04 Kumano Nachi Taisha
Japan33.669° N 135.890° E
Image by pen_ash from Pixabay Kumano Nachi Taisha sits high on a forested mountainside above the Pacific coast of the Kii Peninsula, and everything about it is arranged around water. A short walk below the vermilion halls, the Nachi Falls drop 133 metres in a single white ribbon down a dark cliff, the tallest single-drop waterfall in Japan.
Did you know? Six main sanctuaries stand in a row behind the worship hall, and the fourth, dedicated to Fusumi, is the largest of them.
05 Hashigui-iwa
Japan33.484° N 135.797° E
663highland · CC BY-SA 4.0 Hashigui-iwa is a line of rock pillars marching out to sea. Some forty spires and towers of pale stone, large and small, stand in single file for about 850 metres from the shore at Kushimoto, near the southern tip of the Kii Peninsula, towards the island of Kii-Ōshima.
Did you know? The pillars are the exposed core of an igneous dyke: magma filled cracks in mudstone, earthquakes then raised the coast, and the sea stripped away the softer rock.
How this list is ranked
Places are chosen for how they look, not for how famous they are: each one has its own description and a photograph credited to its author. The order is a single world ranking that weighs the beauty of the place in curated photography together with how widely it is documented — the number of language editions of its encyclopedia article and how often that article is read in a year. The list is rebuilt as places are added, so the order and the counts on this page are always current.
Questions people ask
- What are the most beautiful places in Wakayama Prefecture?
- On our list, Mount Kōya ranks first, followed by Nachi Falls and Okunoin Cemetery, Mount Kōya.
- How tall is Nachi Falls?
- Nachi Falls has a single drop of 133 metres, the tallest of any waterfall of its kind in Japan. It is worshipped as a deity at Kumano Nachi Taisha and Hiryū Shrine at its foot.
- Who founded Mount Kōya?
- Mount Kōya was founded in 816 by the monk Kūkai, also known as Kōbō Daishi, who brought Shingon Buddhism from China. His mausoleum stands at the end of the Okunoin Cemetery.
- What is the Kumano Kodō?
- The Kumano Kodō is a network of ancient pilgrimage routes across the Kii Peninsula leading to the three grand shrines of Kumano. Together with Mount Kōya and Yoshino it forms a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
- What kinds of places are there to see in Wakayama Prefecture?
- In our collection, the places in Wakayama Prefecture are most often waterfalls (1), sea stacks (1), pilgrimage sites (1) and cemeteries (1).
- How many places are on this list in Wakayama Prefecture?
- The list covers 5 places.