Policy

How we handle the camera images

This site displays none of the camera images. Press a card and it hands you over to the page published by the agency itself. That may look inconvenient; it is deliberate. Here is why, and how the 458 cameras were chosen.

295 are video. The other 163 are stills

Starting with the most common misunderstanding: even when something is called a "live camera", most of them are not video. Of the 458 cameras here, 295 stream video and the remaining 163 are still images, replaced one frame at a time at a fixed interval.

Refresh rates differ a lot by agency. Measured directly: the JMA's volcano cameras update about every two minutes, GeoNet every ten minutes, and the Environment Ministry's Internet Nature Research Institute every hour. The same phrase "live camera" covers both, but a picture every two minutes and a picture every hour are completely different things to watch.

The reason stills dominate is that these cameras exist for disaster preparedness and observation, not tourism. To check a volcanic plume or a river level, one frame every few minutes is enough. Streaming 24-hour video for that purpose would send bandwidth costs through the roof. For something maintained out of tax revenue, stills are the sensible choice.

The video is Japanese rivers, the temples of Kyoto, Korean mountains and street corners

The 295 video feeds break down as 98 river streams the Japanese transport ministry runs on YouTube, 14 plus 13 crowd cameras on the temples, shrines and approaches of Kyoto, 14 cameras the Korea National Park Service has placed in national parks, and 28 that local operators publish under their own names. What remains is five from US federal agencies, one from the Ishigakijima Astronomical Observatory, and the 4 at Kenrokuen and Kanazawa Castle Park in Ishikawa.

Kyoto's 27 are of a different kind. They are there neither for disaster prevention nor for observation, but to let people walk at the quieter hours. 14 are the Kyoto Crowd Level Live streams of the Kyoto National Highway Office, and 13 belong to the Kyoto City Tourism Association; both operators write that the resolution is lowered so that individuals cannot be identified. Early in the morning Kiyomizu-zaka and the Arashiyama bamboo grove still show their ground; towards midday they fill with people. You can see all 34 Kyoto cameras together.

Korea's 14 show mountain ridgelines — Ulsanbawi on Seoraksan, Seolcheonbong on Deogyusan, the Cheonjedan altar on Taebaeksan — and the beaches of the Taeanhaean and Dadohaehaesang coasts. Korea shares Japan's clock and has no daylight saving, making these a rare set of overseas cameras that are in daylight when Japan is. They fill the gap in the day when almost every other overseas camera has gone dark. All 14 Korean cameras are here.

The five American feeds are: the Geological Survey's camera on the erupting crater of Kilauea, NASA's International Space Station, a bald eagle nest camera the Fish and Wildlife Service mounted in a tree at a training facility, video from a NOAA remotely operated vehicle lighting its way through the deep sea, and Old Faithful Geyser at Yellowstone. Of these, the deep-sea one only broadcasts while a research cruise is at sea. The bald eagle nest has chicks from winter to early summer; the rest of the year it is an empty nest.

The transport ministry's share comes from channels the Kyushu and Kinki regional bureaux run per river, named directly after the rivers: Onga, Chikugo, Oyodo, Yodo, Kizu. The format is a little unusual — a single stream cycles through several cameras along the river. A bridge upstream holds for a while, then it cuts to a water-level station downstream, and so on around the loop. If you have a particular spot in mind, you wait for its turn to come round.

Each bureau labels these as test broadcasts, so they can stop without notice or change which cameras are in the rotation. The links point at the channel's current live stream rather than a specific video, so they keep working when a stream is replaced.

Streams that run a townscape 24 hours a day are usually commercial. They are free to watch, but the terms often limit that to personal, non-commercial viewing, or decline links from sites run for profit. So for the town cameras we checked, one operator at a time, that the operator does not decline links, copied neither video nor stills, and did nothing more than point people at the broadcast page. Where a broadcaster declines links, its cameras are absent however good the picture is.

So each card in the list states the format, like "Stills, every 2 min" or "Video, rotating", so you know what you are getting before you open it. You can also filter by format to just the 295 video feeds or just the 163 stills.

Being able to see it is not the same as being allowed to use it

Observation cameras published on the internet can be viewed by anyone. But being viewable and being reproducible on your own site are separate questions. Images carry the rights of whoever shot and published them, and most publishers set out their terms of use in writing.

Those terms vary source by source. Some say use it freely. Some say personal viewing is fine but commercial purposes are not. Even within one agency, conditions can differ from camera to camera.

This site plans to carry advertising, which makes it commercial in character. Given that, cameras marked "personal, non-commercial use only" cannot be listed. So the first filter was only what a commercial site can satisfy the conditions for.

The 41 sources listed, and their terms

Japan Meteorological Agency, surveillance camera images (49)

The monitoring cameras on continuously observed volcanoes. Also published under PDL1.0 — usable commercially or otherwise provided the source is credited. In the JMA's case there is also the Meteorological Service Act, separate from the terms, which requires a licence to issue forecasts or warnings as a business. All this site does is direct people to the published pages, so that does not apply here.

Ministry of the Environment, Internet Nature Research Institute (34) / MLIT river surveillance cameras (2)

Both are published under the Public Data License (version 1.0), known as PDL1.0. It is the common rule Japanese government bodies use when releasing data, and it says the data may be used commercially or non-commercially provided the source is stated. It was written to be compatible with the widely used international attribution licences.

MLIT, Lower Arakawa River Office (10)

Ten cameras following the lower Arakawa from Sasamebashi bridge in Saitama to the river mouth on Tokyo Bay. Also PDL1.0: commercial use is permitted if the Kanto Regional Development Bureau website and the relevant page URL are credited as the source. They are gathered on the Arakawa page.

From this source, one camera was dropped and later restored. Fetch the image from the Iwabuchi floodgate camera and it responded normally; the file size and timestamp were indistinguishable from a working camera. Open the contents, though, and it was not a picture of anything — it was a single notice saying the stream was temporarily suspended for construction work. Machine checks alone let that through, which is an illustration of the fact that images can only be judged by looking at them. Opening it again in August 2026 showed the floodgate itself, so it was added as the tenth camera.

US National Park Service (27) / Geological Survey (2) / Fish and Wildlife Service (1) / NOAA Ocean Exploration (1)

In the United States, works created by federal employees as part of their official duties are generally not protected by copyright. So images and materials published by federal agencies can in principle be used freely.

There are exceptions. Even on a government site, externally supplied material can be mixed in, and that carries the original rights holder's conditions. Which means each page's notices have to be checked.

The fine print differs by agency too. The Fish and Wildlife Service specifies that its logo alone requires prior written approval, and NOAA states that uses implying NOAA endorsement of a product or service are not permitted. This site uses neither logo, keeping to links and source credits.

MLIT, river live streams (98)

River video the Kyushu and Kinki regional bureaux run on YouTube. These fall not under PDL1.0 but under the Standard Terms of Use for Government Websites (version 2.0), which permits commercial use provided the source and the relevant page URL are stated. The Kyushu bureau's stream descriptions explicitly say reproduction, public transmission and translation may be done freely.

NASA (1)

The stream from the International Space Station's external cameras. As a work of the US federal government it can be used commercially with attribution. Separate rules cover only the NASA logo and the likenesses of employees and contributors.

Korea National Park Service (14)

The public body managing Korea's 23 national parks, publishing video from cameras on mountain ridges and shorelines without requiring registration. With no time difference from Japan, whatever hour you open it, you get the sky over there at that hour.

Korea has a provision — Copyright Act Article 24-2, free use of public works — under which works whose economic rights are held entirely by a public institution may be used freely and without charge, no permission required. The Service's own copyright policy cites that article and states that works free to use will be marked with KOGL Type 1: commercial use and modification permitted with attribution.

The live video pages, however, carry no such mark. For unmarked material the policy asks for prior consultation, so we do not treat the video itself as reproducible. All this site does is direct people to the published pages, which we judge does not engage that. The Service's copyright policy permits direct linking from other sites and asks that the copyright policy page be linked alongside when doing so; the link in the sources section at the foot of the front page serves that purpose.

NAOJ, Ishigakijima Astronomical Observatory (1)

A stream of the night sky straight from the observatory on Mount Maezato in Ishigaki, Okinawa. The National Astronomical Observatory of Japan's rules on use of its works list, among the free-use cases, "communication on websites, social networks and apps (regardless of whether the page carries advertising)". A source that says in writing that advertising makes no difference was, in all our searching, a rarity. Display the credit and no prior permission is needed.

Permission is needed where the work is the main element of a product for sale, where the work itself is sold, where a person's face appears, and so on. This site reproduces no video and only directs people to the published page, so none of those apply. Ishigakijima Astronomical Observatory is operated by six bodies including NAOJ, the city of Ishigaki and the University of the Ryukyus, but the observatory's own page refers image and video handling to these rules.

Note that the observatory itself labels this stream as in trial operation; it may end without notice.

GeoNet, New Zealand (11)

The agency responsible for earthquake and volcano monitoring. Its published data carries Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 New Zealand, which permits commercial use with attribution.

Nature Parks Foundation (2) / Gosenjaku Hotel Kamikochi (1)

Video streams from Kamikochi and Aso. Unlike the other sources, these two do not permit reproduction. The Nature Parks Foundation is a body contracted by the Environment Ministry and local authorities to manage national park facilities, grounds and footpaths; its copyright page treats linking to the site as free in principle, asks that the link be identified as such, and forbids unauthorised reuse of photographs. Gosenjaku Hotel Kamikochi likewise treats linking as free in principle, asking that a link be identified as a link to the hotel.

So for these, neither video nor image has been copied at all. There is no sample image either, so the card carries a drawing of the sky. They can be played inside the page because the broadcaster has allowed embedding on the YouTube side, and what runs is the broadcaster's own player. That permission was checked camera by camera.

Ishikawa Prefecture, Parks and Green Spaces Division (4)

Four cameras at Kenrokuen and Kanazawa Castle Park. The prefecture's site policy allows links to the top page of its website freely, asking only that you tell them afterwards that you have linked, while it does not allow photographs or illustrations to be copied or reused without permission. So for these four as well, neither video nor image has been copied, and there is no sample image.

These four cannot be played inside the page. All four run at once from the same YouTube channel, so an embed that names the channel cannot settle on which one to show. Naming the individual broadcast would work, but once that broadcast ends the recording would stand in for the live picture, so we do not use that form. The button opens the broadcast page itself.

Kyoto National Highway Office, MLIT (14)

The 14 cameras of Kyoto Crowd Level Live, pointed at the city's temples, shrines and approaches. The Kinki Regional Development Bureau allows links in principle, and what it publishes may be used under the Public Data License (PDL1.0) if the source is named. For this channel, though, the highway office's own site does not announce that it runs the streams; the only attribution is in the descriptions the Kyoto City Tourism Association writes for its own cameras. That is weak ground on which to copy anything, so we show no sample image, only the link.

These 14 cannot be played inside the page either: all 14 run at once from the same channel, so an embed that names the channel cannot settle on which one to show.

Kyoto City Tourism Association (13)

The public-interest association that runs Kyoto City's official tourism site streams 13 cameras around the city under its own name. Its site asks that text, photographs, illustrations and maps not be reproduced, so here too neither video nor image has been copied, and there is no sample image. The 13 run at the same time, so no embed is used here either; the button opens the broadcast page itself.

Broadcasters' news cameras (FNN Prime Online 2 / FBC Fukui 6 / KNB Kitanihon 2 / INC Nagano Cable 2)

Some broadcasters put the news cameras they use on air straight onto YouTube. Shibuya and the Rainbow Bridge are FNN's, six places around Fukui are FBC Fukui Broadcasting's, the Toyama news camera is KNB Kitanihon Broadcasting's, and Zenkoji and Nagano Station are INC Nagano Cable Television's. These are not public agencies, but only feeds the broadcaster itself publishes under its own name were taken.

The conditions differ from broadcaster to broadcaster. On its "Copyright and links" page KNB makes linking free whether or not the linking site is commercial, while declining links that obscure where the material comes from and links used as a sales tool. This site names the source and the operator on every card and sends people straight to the broadcast page, so it stays inside those conditions. FNN's site policy forbids reproduction, rebroadcast and internet redistribution but sets no condition on links. Since none of them permit secondary use of the footage, neither video nor image has been copied, and there is no sample image.

INC Nagano Cable Television states itself that the stream sometimes stops for equipment reasons and that the URL changes when it resumes. If the button does not open, look for the stream in the channel's list.

Temples streaming for themselves (Sensoji 2 / Kinpusenji 1)

Sensoji streams 2 cameras, one facing the main hall and one facing the Kaminarimon, and Kinpusenji 1 facing the Zao-do, each from an official channel in the temple's own name. Sensoji's site handles photographs as a lending procedure, and neither temple publishes anything permitting secondary use of the footage. So neither video nor image has been copied, and there is no sample image.

Town businesses (Cross Shinjuku Vision 1 / Morishin Saburo Shoho 3 / Toshimaya 1)

These are businesses streaming the street in front of their own building. Cross Shinjuku Vision is the company that runs the large display at Shinjuku Station's east exit, Morishin Saburo Shoho is a Buddhist-altar shop at the gate of Higashi Honganji, and Toshimaya is a confectioner in Kamakura.

Morishin Saburo Shoho writes in its description that all rights in the footage are the company's and that use is permitted for non-commercial purposes only. This site carries advertising and so does not meet that condition, so it does nothing beyond pointing people there. Toshimaya's video is published only embedded in the company's own page — the video page itself will not open — so the link goes to that live-camera page.

Of the three, only Cross Shinjuku Vision plays inside this page. That is because the operator's own player is placed here after confirming that the operator permits embedding on YouTube's side. The footage is not being copied.

Local bodies (Fukui Prefecture Taxi Association 5 / Shimane Tourism Federation 1)

The Fukui Prefecture Taxi Association streams 5 views of station-front taxi ranks. They exist so that people can see whether a car is waiting, and that purpose gives them a frame wide enough to take in the whole station square. One more camera showed only the road surface of a rank; there is nothing to enjoy in it, so it was left out.

The Shimane Tourism Federation publishes a still camera on the approach to Izumo Taisha through its "Shimane Kanko Navi" site. It cycles about every ten seconds between three directions: the Ukibashi great torii facing south, and the Seidamari great torii facing north, wide and close. The site declines reuse and unauthorised use, so the image has not been copied and there is no sample image.

These sources and their conditions are also listed together at the foot of the front page. The attribution required to satisfy the terms is given there.

The cameras we left out

This part is what became clear only by doing the work. Even within the Environment Ministry's cameras, the conditions were not uniform.

The terms-of-use page individually lists content treated as an exception because third-party rights apply. Several cameras fell into that category, and among them were some of the most attractive views: Lake Mashu, Asahidake, Jodogahama.

The better the picture, the more you want to list it — but different conditions leave no choice. Those three are deliberately absent.

The same thing happened when the town cameras were added. MBS's site policy declines links from sites run for profit. Hiroshima Home Television's "About links" makes links freely available in principle to sites not run for profit, and asks that they point at the top page. This site carries advertising, so it meets neither condition. The five cameras at the Glico sign in Dotonbori, Itami Airport, the Peace Memorial Park, Miyajima and Hondori crossing are faultless as pictures, but they are not listed.

The same reasoning drove a larger decision. The page this site grew out of also carried town and coast cameras from around the world, mostly Europe. That provider's terms permitted only personal, non-commercial viewing. So the site was split in two: advertising appears only here, on the side collecting cameras whose conditions a commercial site can meet, and the other side runs without it. Housed on one domain, the line between them would be invisible from outside.

Dead cameras are excluded too

Separately from rights, there is a second criterion: does it actually show anything?

Published camera lists in fact contain a good number that are not running. Ones viewable only as "past images", ones down for a long spell during equipment replacement, ones whose page is alive while the image stopped years ago.

Among the candidates for listing, more than a third of the Environment Ministry's cameras were ruled out for this reason. In US national parks too, several had images that had stopped updating months earlier, and some stated outright that the camera was suspended indefinitely. All of those are excluded.

One more criterion narrows the count: one camera per subject. The JMA publishes 95 surveillance cameras, and it is not unusual for three or four of them to face a single volcano. Lining those up without explaining the difference in angle leaves them indistinguishable, so we picked one representative camera per mountain, giving 49. Two that were not producing images at the time of listing are excluded as well.

Even so, cameras do stop temporarily for weather or maintenance. If you notice a dead link or a long outage, it would help a great deal if you told us via the contact form.

How the images are handled

No live video is embedded. What appears on the cards is one sample frame taken from each of 264 of the 458 cameras, with the month it was captured printed at the top left of the card. It is not the current picture. To see now, press the card and go to the agency's page.

The samples from video cameras are frames of the stream itself. For a stream carried on YouTube, the picture on the stream's page is replaced every five minutes with whatever the camera is showing at that moment; one of those was taken, once. Where the stream's page carries a separate cover image instead — an aerial photograph, say — that is not the camera's picture, so it was not used as a sample. The next paragraph covers those.

A card marked "Stream cover" is not the camera's picture. The 39 river streams run by the Kinki Regional Development Bureau of Japan's Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism use an aerial photograph of the river as the cover of the stream's page. That photograph is shown on the card as well, marked "Stream cover" in the top left. It is not a sample, so no month is given. It tells you which stretch of river the stream looks at before you open it, but it is not the footage running right now. The photographs are used under the Government of Japan Standard Terms of Use (version 2.0).

One sample was deliberately taken from an older picture. A stream sometimes replays footage from months earlier, and the sample for Kīlauea is a lava fountain from December 2025. It shows far more of what this volcano does than the crater does today, so it was kept as it is, and the month on the card says December 2025. The date and time are burnt into the top-left corner of the picture, so you can check them there too.

Only where reproduction is explicitly permitted. The JMA, Environment Ministry and MLIT images fall under the Public Data License (PDL1.0), MLIT's live streams under the Standard Terms of Use for Government Content 2.0, GeoNet's under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 New Zealand; both allow reproduction and public transmission with attribution. From sources where reproduction is not clearly permitted — the Korea National Park Service, for instance — not a single frame has been taken.

No hotlinking. Loading someone else's image directly puts the traffic cost on the publisher's server; the more visitors here, the more of their bandwidth is consumed. So each sample was fetched once per camera and is served from this site. We do not hit the agencies' servers repeatedly.

And the role stops at pointing the way. The agencies are the ones who installed the cameras, ran the power and maintain the equipment. The samples exist purely so you know what you will see before you open it; this site has no intention of showing the footage itself.

About the drawing on the cards

166 cards have neither a sample nor a cover: those from broadcasters that do not permit reproduction — the Korea National Park Service, the Nature Parks Foundation, Gosenjaku Hotel Kamikochi — and those not yet captured. They carry a drawing of the sky. That is not a real camera image. It is computed on the spot from the sun's elevation at that camera's local time. Morning there, morning colours; night there, night colours.

In case it is mistaken for an actual camera image, to say it here too: that drawing carries no informational value. Read it as a rough indicator of whether it is light or dark on site.

We will correct mistakes

The readings set out here are our own judgement after reading each agency's published terms. We may have misread something, and terms themselves get revised.

If anyone from a listed agency asks for removal or correction, we will check and act promptly. Reports from members of the public go to the same address. Contact details are at the foot of the front page.

Observation cameras are watchable because somebody installed them and keeps them running. Introducing them without losing sight of that is where this site stands.