Kanto

Kanto is Japan's most populous region, home to more than 43 million people spread across the Tokyo Plain and its bay. At its centre, Tokyo — the nation's capital, economic engine and cultural powerhouse — unfolds across a surface the size of a small country, where the hyper-modernity of Akihabara and Shibuya sits side by side with the tranquillity of Asakusa's temples and the imperial gardens. The Kanto Plain, bounded to the north by the mountains of Nikko and to the west by the slopes of Fuji and the Japanese Alps, opens southward onto Tokyo Bay and the Sagami Sea.

Beyond Tokyo, Kanto offers a remarkable diversity of day trips and excursions. Yokohama, Japan's second city, draws visitors to its cosmopolitan waterfront and the largest Chinatown in Asia. Kamakura, an hour to the south, shelters the great bronze Buddha (Daibutsu) and a network of Zen temples nestled in forested hills. Nikko, to the north, is home to the most elaborately decorated shrines in Japan, rising among thousand-year-old cryptomeria forests on a UNESCO World Heritage site. And Hakone, combined with Lake Ashi and its hot spring resorts (onsen), delivers some of the finest views of Mount Fuji at dawn. Kanto is also the nation's transport hub: from Tokyo, the Shinkansen network radiates to every corner of the archipelago, and regional trains reach the far edges of the region in under two hours. It is usually where a Japan journey begins — and where travellers first discover that a few days here are never quite enough.