Chiba Hidden Gems
Chiba is a peninsula, and being surrounded by warm water on three sides changes what grows and what the winter feels like. The Kuroshio current keeps the southern Boso coast frost-free, which is why flowers are cut there in January and why the surf beaches at Kujukuri work most of the year. The prefecture also happens to hold Narita, so a great many visitors touch down in Chiba and leave without seeing any of it, when the temple complex at Naritasan is fifteen minutes from the terminal and has been a pilgrimage site since the tenth century. On the west coast, Nokogiriyama is a quarried mountain: two centuries of stone-cutting left vertical faces, and a Buddha carved into one of them along with more than 1,500 stone arhats. The interior is farmland, and the Tone and Edo rivers made Sawara and Choshi wealthy shipping produce and soy sauce to Edo.
6 spots
Climate & Best Season
The mildest winters in Kanto thanks to the Kuroshio current; humid summers cooled by sea breezes. Good year-round.
Famous For (Food)
- Peanuts
- Namerō (minced fish)
- Futomaki sushi
- Soy sauce (Noda & Choshi)
Signature Sights
- Naritasan Shinshoji
- Nokogiriyama cliff Buddha
- Kujukuri beaches
- Choshi coast
When to Go
Chiba has the mildest winter in the Kanto region, with January highs around 11°C on the southern coast and almost no snow — the Boso flower fields are cut from January through March, when the rest of Honshu has nothing. Summers are hot and humid but sea breezes take the edge off; the swimming season at Kujukuri runs July and August. Typhoons are a genuine consideration from August into September on this coast. Choshi's cliffs get the earliest sunrise on mainland Japan at New Year. Spring and autumn are comfortable throughout, and Sawara's float festivals fall in July and October.
Getting Around
Narita and Haneda both feed the prefecture, and the Keisei Skyliner reaches Narita in about 40 minutes from Ueno. JR's Sobu and Sotobo and Uchibo lines circle the peninsula, but they slow down considerably south of Kisarazu, and the far end of Boso takes over two hours from Tokyo. The Tokyo Bay Aqua-Line cuts across the bay by bridge and tunnel and turns a long detour into a short bus ride to Kisarazu. Nokogiriyama has a ropeway from Hama-Kanaya, reachable by ferry from Kurihama. For the inland farms and the smaller beaches, take a car.
Local Food
Choshi and Noda have brewed soy sauce for centuries — Noda for the Tokyo market, Choshi with sea air — and both run brewery tours. Namero is a fisherman's dish from the Boso coast: horse mackerel chopped on the board with miso and ginger until it holds together. Chiba grows more peanuts than any other prefecture, mostly around Yachimata, harvested in autumn and sold boiled as well as roasted. Futomaki-matsuri-zushi, thick rolls cut to reveal a picture in the rice, is a farming-village craft from the interior.
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