Spring

Japan's Cherry Blossom Season

The season is not ten days in Tokyo. It starts in Okinawa in January and ends in Hokkaido in May, and the early varieties flower a month before anyone books a flight. How to follow it instead of chasing it.

An avenue of cherry trees in full bloom arching over a path under a blue sky — Japan · April 2019

Almost everyone plans a cherry blossom trip the same way: pick the first week of April, book Tokyo and Kyoto, and hope. It is the single most expensive week of the Japanese year to travel, it is the week the forecast is least reliable, and it is not when most of the country flowers.

The blossom front moves from the south-west to the north-east over about four months. If you are willing to go where it is rather than where the posters are, the season is enormous.

At a glance

Okinawa: Mid-January to February, and a different species — deep pink, bell-shaped
Early varieties: Kawazu-zakura and others flower from February on the Izu peninsula and elsewhere
Tokyo and Kyoto: Usually the last week of March into the first week of April
Tohoku: Mid to late April
Hokkaido: Late April in the south, into the middle of May in the east
How long: About a week from first bloom to full bloom, then a week if the weather holds

Two different flowers

Deep pink cherry blossom in dense clusters along a branch — Early varieties are a stronger pink than the familiar one, and they hold for three weeks rather than one.Japan · March 2025

The flower everyone means is somei-yoshino, a single clone propagated by cutting since the nineteenth century. Because every tree is genetically identical, they all open within days of each other in a given area — which is exactly why the season is so short and so synchronised, and why a forecast can be given to the day.

The early varieties are different plants. Kawazu-zakura is a deeper pink, opens in February, and stays on the tree for two to three weeks because the individual flowers are not racing one another. Okinawa's kanhizakura is deeper still, nearly magenta, and bell-shaped — it hangs downward rather than facing out.

Bright yellow mimosa flowering beside pale pink cherry blossom — Early March: mimosa and the early cherries flower together, six weeks before the crowds.Japan · March 2025

A cluster of pink cherry blossom against a bright sky — Three weeks of flowering instead of one is worth more than the exact shade.Japan · March 2025

For anyone who cannot move their travel dates, this is the useful fact on the page. A February or early-March trip can see cherry blossom in Japan, at normal hotel prices, without a crowd.

How to read the forecast

Private weather companies publish blossom forecasts from January and revise them weekly. Two dates matter and they are not the same: kaika (開花), first bloom, when a few flowers open on the reference tree, and mankai (満開), full bloom, which follows about a week later in Tokyo and a little longer further north.

The photographs you have in mind are taken between full bloom and about three days after it. That is a four-day window, roughly ten days after the first-bloom date — which means a forecast issued in January is useful for choosing a week and useless for choosing a day.

Where to be when

Cherry blossom above a bank of bright yellow rape flowers — Late March: the rape flower and the cherry overlap for about ten days.Japan · March 2021

Late March is the south and the Kanto plain. Tokyo's reference tree is at Yasukuni shrine and the city usually opens within a day or two of it; Kyoto and Osaka follow a few days later, not before. Fukuoka and Hiroshima are usually a touch earlier than Tokyo.

Cherry trees in full bloom along a waterside path — Full bloom and no wind. This condition lasts a matter of days.Japan · March 2020

Cherry blossom overhanging a river with small boats moored along the bank — Water does half the work: the reflection doubles a canopy that is otherwise hard to frame.Japan · April 2020

Mid-April is Tohoku. Sendai, Hirosaki and the Kakunodate samurai district flower a fortnight after Tokyo, and the crowds are domestic rather than international. Hotel prices are ordinary.

A tunnel of cherry blossom over a gravel path with fresh green grass below — The second week of May in Hokkaido — six weeks after Tokyo finished.Hokkaido · May 2022

Late April into May is Hokkaido, and it is the most underrated version of the season. The island flowers with its leaves rather than before them, so the canopy is white and green rather than pure white, and it coincides with the plum and the fresh grass. Hakodate goes first, around the start of May; the east of the island can run to the middle of the month.

A cherry tree in bloom on open grass beside a wooden cabin, with bare woodland behind — Hokkaido's season arrives with spring itself rather than ahead of it.Hokkaido · May 2022

A wide blue lake with forested islands and a snow-capped volcano beyond, seen over blossoming trees — Blossom in the foreground and last winter's snow still on the mountain. Only the north gives you both.Hokkaido · May 2022

Night viewing is a different photograph

Cherry blossom lit from below along both banks of a narrow city canal at night — Lit blossom over a Tokyo canal, after one in the morning. The crowd thins after midnight; the lights usually stay on.Tokyo · April 2019

Yozakura — night blossom — is lit from below, which turns the canopy opaque and the sky black. It is a completely different picture from the daytime one and considerably easier to take well, because the light is fixed and the background disappears.

The practical point is the hour. Most lit sites run their lamps until around ten or eleven, and the crowd drops away sharply in the last hour. On the canal above, the lights were still on at one in the morning with nobody there at all.

Practical

Book accommodation before the forecast, cancel if you must. Rooms in Kyoto and Tokyo for the first week of April are gone by January at sane prices. Hold a refundable booking and decide later.

Avoid the last week of April. Golden Week — the run of public holidays from 29 April to 5 May — is the most expensive and most crowded week of the Japanese domestic year, and it falls exactly between the Tohoku and Hokkaido blossom. Go either side of it.

Pack for March, not for spring. Full bloom in Tokyo routinely coincides with 8°C and rain. Hokkaido in early May can be colder.