{"id":67300,"date":"2026-09-16T23:17:48","date_gmt":"2026-09-16T21:17:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/?p=67300"},"modified":"2026-09-20T22:57:27","modified_gmt":"2026-09-20T20:57:27","slug":"some-stunning-sites-in-inaka-japans-little-known-rural-area","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2026\/09\/16\/some-stunning-sites-in-inaka-japans-little-known-rural-area\/","title":{"rendered":"Some stunning sites in Inaka, Japan's little-known rural area"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Abroad, Japan is known for its vast cities connected by high-speed railways, but the country is much more than that.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p><rel><a href=\"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2026\/07\/17\/a-tour-of-some-of-the-beautiful-hidden-treasures-of-nagasaki-japan\/\">A tour of some of the beautiful hidden treasures of Nagasaki, Japan<\/a><\/rel><br \/>\n<rel><a href=\"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2026\/04\/12\/a-route-with-breathtaking-views-of-majestic-fuji-japans-sacred-mountain\/\">A route with breathtaking views of majestic Fuji, Japan's sacred mountain<\/a><\/rel><\/p>\n<p>Beyond those major cities, <strong>Japan is an overwhelmingly rural country.<\/strong> Seventy percent of its land area consists of undeveloped terrain, comprising both forests and mountains. <strong>This rural region\u2014known locally as \"Inaka\"<\/strong> (\u7530\u820e, meaning \"countryside\" in Japanese)\u2014is home to only 8\u201310% of the Japanese population, yet it boasts some truly breathtaking locations.<\/p>\n<p>Last Friday, the consistently fascinating Japanese YouTube channel <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@watatabi\" target=\"_blank\">Watatabi (\u308f\u305f\u65c5)<\/a>\u2014which I highly recommend subscribing to if you want to get to know the country better\u2014<strong>released a video touring the Inaka and showcasing some beautiful, off-the-beaten-path locations<\/strong>, including forests, rock formations, waterfalls, and caves (the video is in Japanese but features English subtitles, which you can enable in the player):<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\" \u3010\u307e\u308b\u3067\u5225\u4e16\u754c\u3011\u307e\u3060\u77e5\u3089\u308c\u3066\u3044\u306a\u3044\u606f\u3092\u5451\u3080\u307b\u3069\u7f8e\u3057\u3044\u718a\u672c\u770c\u306e\u79d8\u5883\u30fb\u7d76\u666f\u30b9\u30dd\u30c3\u30c818\u9078\uff01\u79d8\u7684\u306a\u795e\u793e\u3084\u6edd\u306a\u3069\u7a74\u5834\u306e\u30b9\u30dd\u30c3\u30c8\" width=\"665\" height=\"374\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/dHHOtmm0gBA?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Here you can see some screenshots from this video. <strong>The image at the top of the article shows the Kamikawa Otaki Waterfall<\/strong>, which is 25 meters high and 30 meters wide. It is located in the southwest of Ky\u016bsh\u016b Island. <strong>Below, we can see the limestone cave at Shirataki Park<\/strong>, also situated in southwestern Ky\u016bsh\u016b. In this instance, the cave is shown with a high volume of water due to recent rainfall.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/55532651991_1c9b8074f6_o.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/55532651991_2f6040c64d_z.jpg\" style=\"width:100%; height:auto; border:0px;\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>The beautiful forest trail to Kaname Falls<\/strong>, located in Hitoyoshi, Kumamoto Prefecture\u2014also in southwestern Ky\u016bsh\u016b.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/55533038070_8033965cb8_o.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/55533038070_076aba3b8d_z.jpg\" style=\"width:100%; height:auto; border:0px;\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>The great Mea-Fudo rock<\/strong> is located in Yamaga, in the northern part of Kumamoto Prefecture. It stands 80 meters tall, with its summit reaching 389 meters above sea level. Behind it lie the Naka-Fudo and Ato-Fudo rocks.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/55533038060_a0841f7ae6_o.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/55533038060_2ba0e7a8e5_z.jpg\" style=\"width:100%; height:auto; border:0px;\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Kyusendo Cave, the largest limestone cave in Ky\u016bsh\u016b.<\/strong> It is located in the village of Kuma and is 5 kilometers long.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/55531633457_e36efe4567_o.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/55531633457_c3d6bd147f_z.jpg\" style=\"width:100%; height:auto; border:0px;\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Abroad, Japan is known for its vast cities connected by high-speed railways, but the country is much more than that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[23118,19535,19075],"tags":[27881,27877,27873,12880,27885,27884,27883,27878,3463,27886,27879,27880,27887],"class_list":["post-67300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bloque-6-exploring-eng","category-exploring-portada-eng","category-routes","tag-ato-fudo","tag-hitoyoshi","tag-inaka","tag-japan","tag-kamikawa-otaki-falls","tag-kaname-falls","tag-kuma","tag-kumamoto","tag-kyushu","tag-kyusendo-cave","tag-mea-fudo","tag-naka-fudo","tag-shirataki-park"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-09-28 21:23:37","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67300"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67300\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}