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This Japanese Village Gets 1000x More Tourists Than Residents — And Loves It
Shirakawa in Gifu Prefecture isn’t complaining about “overtourism.” Here’s why.
I try to take “tourists behaving badly” stories in Japan these days with a grain of salt. Let’s be honest — if you invite three million people into your house, odds are good someone’s gonna end up puking on the carpet. And it’s not like Japanese citizens are all angelic and virtuous, either.
What I love to see, though, are stories about the positive impacts of tourism on Japan — particularly on the areas outside of the typical destinations of Tokyo, Kyoto, and Osaka. For example, there’s the town of Fujiyoshida, whose town center was dying before a surge in tourism brought it back to life.
Then there’s Shirakawa-go in Gifu Prefecture. Part of the village of Shirakawa-mura, Shirakawa-go is composed of houses built entirely in the traditional gasshou-zukuri style with thatched and angled roofs. It’s a wonderful site to behold — particularly in the winter when the snowfall covers the dwellings.
Shirakawa-mura currently consists of around 1,400 people. Around 500 live in Shirakawa-go. In 2013, the village had 150,000 foreign tourists visit. By 2019, that number had climbed to one million. Today, with tourism to Japan booming, the village sees about 1,000 times more…
