Cedar forests soaked by some of the heaviest rain in Japan, white coral beaches, sea cliffs and a rocket launch site: the islands of Kagoshima Prefecture pack a remarkable range of landscapes into the sea south of Kyushu. A drone film by the egawauemon channel, shot between April and July, strings six of them together: Yakushima, Yoron, Tanegashima, Koshiki, Amami and Kakeroma.

Coastal cliffs and clear water in a drone film of Kagoshima’s islands – by egawauemon
Coast and clear water in the Kagoshima islands drone film. Credit: egawauemon.

Yakushima: ancient cedars and Japan’s wettest mountains

Yakushima covers about 505 km² and rises to 1,936 metres at Mount Miyanoura. Moist ocean air hits those mountains and drops between 4,000 and 10,000 mm of rain a year, making it the wettest place in Japan. The result is a moss-covered forest of giant Japanese cedars, the yakusugi. The most famous, Jōmon Sugi, is at least 2,300 years old. UNESCO listed the island as a natural World Heritage Site in 1993.

Getting there: flights from Kagoshima Airport take about 40 minutes, and jetfoils and car ferries sail from Kagoshima Port.

Tanegashima: rockets and a turning point in history

Just across the strait from Yakushima, Tanegashima covers 445 km² and lies about 43 km south of the Ōsumi Peninsula. JAXA’s Tanegashima Space Center, founded in 1969 on the island’s southeastern tip, is Japan’s largest space development centre, and H3 rockets launch from its Yoshinobu complex beside the sea.

The island has an older claim to fame. In 1543 Portuguese traders landed here and introduced European firearms to Japan,. The island is reached by ferry from Kagoshima or by air to New Tanegashima Airport.

Amami Ōshima and Kakeromajima: subtropical forest and coral coast

Amami Ōshima, at 712 km², is the seventh-largest island in the Japanese archipelago. Its forests are home to the endemic Amami rabbit, a “living fossil” found only here and on neighbouring Tokunoshima, and the island has a large mangrove forest within Amami Guntō National Park. In 2021 it became part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site shared with Tokunoshima, northern Okinawa and Iriomote. Look out for Ōshima tsumugi, a hand-woven silk for kimono dyed black with mud.

Kakeromajima sits just across the narrow Ōshima Strait. It is a rugged, quiet island of about 77 km² with a coral-fringed coastline of 147 km and roughly 1,600 people spread across 30 small hamlets. Frequent ferries link it with Amami Ōshima. Amami Airport has flights to Tokyo, Osaka, Fukuoka, Naha and Kagoshima.

Yoron and the Koshiki Islands

Yoron, the southernmost of the Amami Islands, is a raised coral island of only about 21 km², just 22 km north of Okinawa’s northern tip. Its white beaches, including Yuri Beach and Sunset Beach, are famous across Japan, and the whole island is ringed by reef. Flights connect Yoron with Kagoshima, Okinoerabu and Naha, and ferries run to Kagoshima, Amami Ōshima, Kobe and Osaka.

The Koshiki Islands lie on the opposite side of the prefecture, about 38 km off Kyushu’s west coast in the East China Sea. Part of the city of Satsumasendai since 2004, they are known for dramatic sea cliffs and rock formations, best seen on cruises from Shimo-Koshiki, and are an Important Bird Area for the Japanese wood pigeon.

Planning a Kagoshima island trip

The six islands in the film are spread across hundreds of kilometres of sea, so pick one or two of them, not all six. Yakushima suits hikers; Amami and Kakeroma suit nature lovers who want forest and reef together; Yoron is a beach island; Tanegashima rewards anyone interested in space and history. Kagoshima city is the hub for most flights and ferries, and the official Kagoshima travel guide has island-by-island information. The Amami islands have a rainy season from May to September and frequent typhoons, so leave a spare day for weather when booking sea or air connections.

Our Takachiho Gorge guide explores a different southern Japanese landscape, while Aogashima shows another remote Japanese island.

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