Hakuba is a true alpine village, situated in the heart of the Japan Alps. The surrounding scenery is truly spectacular with huge rugged peaks towering above the village below.

The Chinese characters for Hakuba mean "white horse." Hakuba gets its name from the shape of the rocks on the face of Shirouma-dake mountain when the snow melts in spring.

Click here for information from the Hakuba local government office, who also provided this Hakuba area map

Apart from the resort infrastructure and scenery, Hakuba is renowned for the variety of its resorts and the quality of its powder snow.

The Hakuba valley has seven main ski resorts - Happo-one, Hakuba 47, Hakuba Goryu, Sanosaka, Iwatake, Minetake and Highland.

With the highest resorts peaking at around 1850m, the ski season runs from early December to early May each year.

As occurs in other ski areas within the Japanese alps, it is a happy coincidence that Hakuba enjoys a dearth both of mountainous terrain, and volcanic 'onsen' mineral water sources.

Many hotels will offer such spa baths as part of their facilities. There are a number of individually-run onsen spa baths also, such as Tenjin-no-yu [pictured]