Shirarahama Beach

Shirarahama is a beautiful beach with pure white, silky sand, emerald green sea, and a beautiful arc of sand in the shape of a bow that stretches 620 meters.

It is one of the best beaches in the Kinki region, crowded with bathers during the summer, and the beach usually opens on May 3, the earliest day in Honshu (mainland Japan).

The scenery of palm trees reminds one of Waikiki Beach in Hawaii, which is a sister beach of the beach, and gives one a resort-like atmosphere.

Selected as one of the best 100 sunsets in Japan, the white sand beach offers a spectacular view of the sky and sea turning red from the lapping waves and the setting sun.

The white sand of Shirarahama has been known since ancient times, and was used in poetry and as a description of whiteness.

Shirarahama consists of quartz sand with a silicic acid content of over 90%. During the Meiji and Taisho periods, sand from Shirarahama was mined and transported to Osaka as a raw material for glass.

It is the center of Shirahama Hot Springs, and Shirarahama Beach is the origin of the name Shirahama Hot Springs.

There is an open-air bath “Shirasuna” for men and women mixed bathing, which can be used in swimsuits, on the sandy beach, and there is a forest of large hotels and other hot spring lodging facilities in the southern part of the area along Shirarahama.

There is a public bathhouse “Shirara-yu” just off the sandy beach of Shirara Beach, where bathtubs are located on the second floor and Shirara Beach can be seen from the windows. In summer, it is crowded with many bathers.

Shirahama Onsen is one of the three oldest hot springs in Japan, and is mentioned in the Nihonshoki (Chronicles of Japan) as having been visited by emperors of the time (658 - 701). Muro no Yu also appears in Manyoshu (around 759).

Since then, many people, from aristocrats (lords of the Kishu domain in the Edo period) to common people, have enjoyed Shirahama hot springs.

The sand on the beach has been washed away by waves, and the development around the beach has conspicuously thinned the beach as the supply of sand from the land behind it has been cut off by the development around the beach.

In order to restore the beach, a dike (submerged dike) was built under the sea to reduce the outflow and to replenish the sand, sand from the desert near Perth, Australia, was introduced because sand as white as the original Shirarahama sand could not be found nearby.