One of the most tantalizing highlights of a visit to Japan is seeing sakura—cherry blossoms—which paint the landscape in cities and countryside a magnificent pale pink from March through May. The Japan National Tourism Organization (JNTO) maintains a useful website that each year forecasts the dates and locations of cherry blossom season. And because Japan stretches a thousand miles from south to north, sakura bloom at various times from mid-March through mid-May depending on the locale.
This spring, the cherry blossoms are expected to bloom first in the country’s southernmost island, Kyushu, on or around March 19. They are expected to blossom in Tokyo on March 20 and in Hiroshima on March 21. About a week later, they will open in Kyoto. As spring progresses, cherry blossoms will bloom in Tohoku prefecture in northern Honshu in early April. The season will make its way northward, with blossoms appearing in Hokkaido Island’s Sapporo in the last days of April and on May 12 in Hokkaido’s Kushiro.
Americans have been obsessed with Japanese blossoms for more than a century, ever since Japan gifted the U.S. 3,000 cherry trees to be planted along the shores of the Potomac River. Every year, thousands of Americans flood to Washington, D.C. to see the glory of the trees that bloom for just two weeks. But on a visit to Japan, visitors have two months to enjoy nature’s splendor.
Good to know: 2024 has been officially designated by the U.S. and Japanese governments as U.S.-Japan Tourism Year, and tourism in both directions is expected to increase significantly.
For more information on this year's cherry blossom forecast, visit www.japan.travel/cherry-blossom-forecast-2024.
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