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Kenrokuen Garden: 1 Live Camera in Japan

Kenrokuen in Kanazawa, seen from inside the garden by a camera of Ishikawa Prefecture. One of the three great gardens of Japan, with the seasons turning in a fixed frame.

What you can see

This camera looks out over Kenrokuen in Kanazawa from inside the garden. Together with Kairakuen in Mito and Korakuen in Okayama it is counted among the three great gardens of Japan.

The lords of the Kaga domain enlarged it over generations. It is built as a strolling garden around a pond, meant to show a different view from every point on the path, so a camera can only hold one of those views.

What makes this one worth returning to is that the frame never moves. The composition stays put while the snow ropes of winter, the blossom of spring and the colour of autumn pass through it. Open it once a season and the same ground is measurably different.

Yukitsuri is the work of running ropes out from a pine's trunk so the branches do not break under snow. It begins in early November and comes down in the middle of March. The ropes draw a cone around each pine, which reads even from a distance.

Next door is Kanazawa Castle Park, which has three cameras of its own.

Cameras you can watch now: 1

All 1 are live video. Tap one to open it in the camera list.

When to watch

Winter, November to March, is what this camera is for. The snow ropes go up, and once snow settles the picture is three colours: pine, rope and snow. Snow holds best early in the morning.

Spring is blossom. Kenrokuen has a great many cherry trees, and in the first days of April the garden turns all at once.

Autumn is colour, from the middle to the end of November, when the ground around the pond goes red and yellow.

In any season, morning and evening suit it best. In the middle of the day the gap between lit and shaded ground is wide and the dark parts fill in. At night almost nothing shows.

If it isn't showing

The castle next door is Kanazawa Castle Park, and the cameras of the same prefecture are in Ishikawa.

This camera is also in Cherry Blossom and Snow. Cameras where the leaves turn are gathered in Autumn Leaves.

Every camera on a castle, shrine or temple is in World Heritage.

Where to find Kenrokuen Garden

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.

To find other cameras, go to the camera list. You can narrow all 450 cameras by format, region, subject and provider.