KYUSHU

Kyushu - Guide to Kyushu Japan. Kyushu is the southernmost of the 4 main islands of Japan. Major cities in Kyushu include Fukuoka and Nagasaki.

The climate is slightly warmer and more tropical than Honshu, and the southern and eastern coasts are regularly battered by typhoons each year. The terrain is generally mountainous with very fertile valleys much like the rest of Japan, except for the wide plain area at the top of the island - the location of the largest city area of Fukuoka and Kitakyushu.

Kyushu Regions

There are 7 prefectures on Kyushu, plus nearby Okinawa:

Fukuoka -- Home of Fukuoka city, the "Capital" of Kyushu
Saga -- Small and rustic, famous for pottery and pre-historic village ruins
Nagasaki -- Hilly city with more than it's fair share of history - major "foreigners port" during the closed-Japan period, and victim of the 2nd US atomic weapon attack during World War II
Oita -- Rural area well known for abundant onsen hot springs especially Beppu
Kumamoto -- Center of the isle of Kyushu, location of the Aso caldera, largest in the world, and the beautiful Amakusa chain of islands
Miyazaki -- The surfers' destination of Japan - big beaches, big waves
Kagoshima -- Dominated by the Sakurajima volcano, hot enough to grow sugarcane, get buried on hot-sands beaches, two famous islands of Yakushima and Tanegashima

Okinawa -- corals and fish! about 1 hour flight from main land Kyushu. Once an independent Kingdom leading the South-Asian sea-trade. Once governed by US. the island has a mixed culture between the West, Japan and Okinawa. Very different from the rest of the country. One of the most popular destinations for summer vacation in Japan.

(Article based on Wikitravel article Richard Petersen, Colin Jensen, Ted O'Neill and Evan Prodromou and Wikitravel user(s) Jpatokal, Nzpcmad and Dirty Dingus.  and Anonymous user(s) of Wikitravel. Article used under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 1.0.)