The Most Spectacular Viewpoints in Japan
5 places · updated 13 October 2026
In short: By our ranking, the most spectacular viewpoints in Japan are Tokyo Skytree, Tokyo Tower and Amanohashidate. The list covers 5 viewpoints. Last updated 13 October 2026.
Japan has a long tradition of celebrated views. Since the 17th century, poets and printmakers have named meisho, famous places, and fixed lists such as the Three Views of Japan, so a view could become as famous as a temple. Mountain valleys, tidal straits and sandbars all qualify, and in the 20th century Tokyo added towers built to give a whole city as a panorama.
Amanohashidate, on the coast of Kyoto Prefecture, is a long pine-covered sandbar across a bay and one of the Three Views; by tradition visitors look at it upside down, between their legs, so it seems to float into the sky. Kamikōchi, a high valley in the Northern Alps, opens onto the Hotaka peaks from the banks of the clear Azusa River. The Naruto whirlpools form in the strait between Shikoku and Awaji Island when the tide turns. In Tokyo, the orange and white Tokyo Tower of 1958 was the city's symbol for half a century, while Tokyo Skytree, at 634 metres, is the tallest tower in the world.
In this list
| # | Place | Type | UNESCO |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Tokyo Skytree | Observation tower | |
| 2 | Tokyo Tower | Observation tower | |
| 3 | Amanohashidate | Scenic viewpoint | |
| 4 | Kamikōchi | Scenic viewpoint | |
| 5 | Naruto whirlpools | Scenic viewpoint |
01 Tokyo Skytree
Japan · 6.1 km from Tokyo35.710° N 139.811° E
Image by cegoh from Pixabay Visitors ride lifts to two observatories. The lower one at 350 m holds up to 2,000 people and has a section of glass floor looking straight down to the streets. From there a second lift climbs to the Tembo Galleria at 450 m, a glass-covered skywalk spiralling up the last five metres to the highest point open to the public. At the foot of the tower, the Tokyo Solamachi complex holds shops, restaurants and the Sumida Aquarium.
Did you know? At ground level the tower's cross-section is an equilateral triangle, which gradually morphs into a circle higher up the shaft.
02 Tokyo Tower
Japan · 3.2 km from Tokyo35.659° N 139.746° E
Image by LittleMouse from Pixabay Visitors enter through FootTown, a five-storey building at the base with shops and restaurants, and ride up to the two-level Main Deck at 150 metres, with a further lift to the smaller Top Deck at about 250 metres, redesigned in 2018. An outdoor staircase of around 600 steps also climbs from the roof of FootTown to the Main Deck and can be used on certain days in place of the lift. The tower stands in the Shiba Park district of Minato.
Did you know? It was designed to withstand an earthquake twice as strong as the Great Kantō earthquake of 1923 and typhoon winds of up to 220 km/h.
03 Amanohashidate
Japan · 18.4 km from Maizuru35.570° N 135.192° E
663highland · CC BY 2.5 The sight is meant to be seen from above. From Kasamatsu Park on the northern hills the bar appears as a single diagonal stroke across the bay, and visitors keep up the custom of bending over to look at it upside down between their legs, so that it seems to float in the sky. From the southern side, the Amanohashidate View Land observatory, opened in 1970, shows it curving like a dragon in flight. At the southern tip, a small swing bridge pivots 90 degrees to let boats pass, and a 3.2 km path along the bar is open to walkers and cyclists but closed to cars.
Did you know? In the Heian period the poet Koshikibu no Naishi named Amanohashidate in a poem later included in the classic anthology Hyakunin Isshu.
04 Kamikōchi
Japan · 30.3 km from Matsumoto36.247° N 137.633° E
Image by noname from Pixabay The valley was heavily logged until the mid-19th century and later used for grazing; horses and cattle were kept at Tokusawa until 1934. Its reputation as a mountain landscape owes much to Walter Weston, a British missionary whose writings popularised recreational mountaineering in Japan and who argued for the area's protection; a festival in his honour is held each June. Today Kamikōchi is the main gateway to the climbs on Yarigatake and Okuhotaka, with mountain huts spread along the trails.
Did you know? In 1828 the Buddhist monk Banryū climbed Yarigatake and placed a Buddhist image on its summit.
05 Naruto whirlpools
Japan · 21 km from Tokushima34.238° N 134.651° E
Hellbuny · CC BY-SA 3.0 Naruto itself is a coastal city of around 56,000 people at the north-eastern tip of Tokushima Prefecture, facing the Inland Sea to the north and the Kii Channel to the east.
Did you know? Japanese sources sometimes rank the Naruto current with the Strait of Messina and Canada's Seymour Narrows as the world's three great tidal races.
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 spectacular viewpoints in Japan?
- On our list, Tokyo Skytree ranks first, followed by Tokyo Tower and Amanohashidate.
- What are the Three Views of Japan?
- Matsushima Bay in Miyagi, the sandbar of Amanohashidate in Kyoto Prefecture and the island of Miyajima with its floating torii in Hiroshima Prefecture. The list goes back to the 17th-century scholar Hayashi Gahō.
- Why do whirlpools form at Naruto?
- The tides of the Pacific and the Seto Inland Sea differ greatly on either side of the narrow Naruto Strait, so water rushes through at high speed and forms whirlpools that can reach about 20 metres across.
- How tall is Tokyo Skytree?
- It is 634 metres tall, completed in 2012, which makes it the tallest tower in the world. Its highest observation deck is at 450 metres.
- How many viewpoints are on this list in Japan?
- The list covers 5 viewpoints.