Category
World Heritage: 7 Live Cameras
World Heritage sites and nationally designated cultural properties and scenic places — landscapes held in shape for centuries, shown in today's weather.
What you can see
What is gathered here are places where the view itself is protected: cameras inside UNESCO World Heritage areas, or on land designated by the state as a scenic site or historic site.
The difference from the nature cameras is that people are still involved. The cherry trees on Mount Yoshino are not a wild forest; they have been replanted, generation after generation, for more than a thousand years. The gardens of the Kyoto Imperial Palace Park would collapse within a few years if the work stopped. Nothing on screen got that way by being left alone.
Overseas sites are included. The US National Park Service's Yosemite and Hawai'i Volcanoes are both inscribed World Heritage areas, and as US federal works they can be shown freely with attribution.
Cameras you can watch now: 7
3 video, 4 still. Tap one to open it in the camera list.
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Sample August 2026
Shusuitei, Kyoto Imperial Garden
Kyoto · World Heritage
An Edo-period tea house and pond at the south end of the garden. Improbably quiet for central Kyoto, and the trees mark the season.
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Sample August 2026
Kamisenbon, Mount Yoshino
Yoshino, Nara · World Heritage · Nature
Part of a World Heritage site famous for cherry trees blanketing the hillside. Even out of season, the town in the valley and the layered ridges are worth it.
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Sample August 2026
Yosemite National Park
California · Nature · World Heritage
A huge granite valley carved by ice. As the sun moves, hard shadows travel across the faces of Half Dome and El Capitan.
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Still image
Hawaii Volcanoes National Park
Hawaii Island · Volcano · World Heritage
A World Heritage park containing Kilauea and Mauna Loa. What the camera shows changes day to day with the state of the eruption.
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Live video, rotating
Kumano and Ainotani Rivers
Wakayama / Mie · River · World Heritage
The river the World Heritage Kumano pilgrimage routes cross. Pilgrims once travelled it by boat, and long sections run through gorge.
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Live video
Cheonjedan, Taebaeksan
Taebaek, Gangwon · Nature · World Heritage
A stone altar built near the summit. It sits on an open ridge, so it is windy, and the difference between a clear day and a white-out is stark.
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Live video
Sangwonsa, Chiaksan
Wonju, Gangwon · Nature · World Heritage
A temple high on the mountain, with the ridgelines opening out beyond it. Cloud often drops to the temple's own height, leaving the halls floating in mist.
When to watch
Mount Yoshino is April. The bloom climbs the mountain from the lower groves upward, so flowering within the same mountain is staggered by around two weeks. The upper-grove camera usually peaks in mid-April. Outside that, it is a green hillside.
Gardens like the Kyoto Imperial Palace Park read most easily in autumn, turning in late November. Bare winter has its own argument though: once the leaves drop, the shape of the buildings and the bones of the garden come out.
For time of day, take the early morning. Cameras at visitor sites collect people through the day; at dawn you get the place itself. Overseas cameras are in other time zones — check the local time shown on the camera list before opening one.
Browse by mountain or lake
Agencies publishing the cameras on this page
- Korea National Park Service (Public work, free use) — Official site
- MLIT river live streams (Government Standard Terms 2.0) — Official site
- Ministry of the Environment — Internet Nature Institute (PDL 1.0) — Official site
- U.S. National Park Service (U.S. government work) — Official site
The footage belongs to each agency. This site is an unofficial guide, and each sample frame was copied once per camera under that agency's terms of use.