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Hokkaido Live Cameras in Japan — 17 official webcams

Nine monitored volcanoes, six cameras on Hokkaido's marshes and lakes, and two river live streams working through thirteen river systems. Nowhere else in Japan follows cranes and swans on separate cameras.

What you can see

The seventeen break down as nine monitored volcanoes run by the Japan Meteorological Agency, six marsh and lake cameras run by the Ministry of the Environment, and two river live streams run by the Hokkaido Regional Development Bureau. The volcanoes ring the island: Atosanupuri and Mount Meakan in the east, Asahidake and Tokachidake through the centre, Tarumae, Usu and Hokkaido Komagatake to the southwest, and Esan out on the headland above the Tsugaru Strait. Some show steam directly — Atosanupuri, the Noboribetsu Jigokudani valley — while others give you only the outline of a mountain.

The six water cameras are a different proposition. Lake Kussharo and Lake Shikotsu sit in calderas, Sarobetsu Mire runs flat to the horizon, and Kushiro Marsh and Lake Kutcharo exist to watch birds. In one prefecture you can open a steaming crater and a crowded shoreline side by side.

The remaining two are the rivers of Hokkaido live streams. The Hokkaido Regional Development Bureau splits 32 camera points across thirteen river systems — the Ishikari, the Teshio, the Tokachi, the Kushiro and more — between two streams that cycle through them in turn. Where the other fifteen hold one view, these change the place while you wait.

17 cameras in Hokkaido

2 video, 15 still. Tap one to open it in the camera list.

When to watch

The wetland and lake cameras become different places with the seasons. Lake Kutcharo is a stopover rather than a wintering ground for its whooper swans, so numbers swing sharply in spring and autumn, and the lake can freeze over in midwinter. The red-crowned cranes of Kushiro Marsh do not migrate and are there year-round, but they are easiest to spot in winter, once the grass has died back and snow has fallen. The camera watches one point of a very large marsh, so open it expecting to search the frame. Sarobetsu Mire comes into flower from June into July.

The nine volcano cameras look much the same all year, but winter days are short here: in December it is already dark by mid-afternoon. If you want a Hokkaido morning, open it about an hour earlier than you would for Honshu.

The two rivers of Hokkaido streams run on a different calendar from Honshu. The water rises most from April to May with the snowmelt, then again from late August into September with the typhoons. With no rainy season here, June and July are comparatively quiet.

Closer looks at cameras here

Agencies publishing the cameras on this page

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.

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