It’s no secret that autumn is my favorite time of year. From the Higanbana (red spider lilies) that flower at places like Kinchakuda Manjushage Park to the last maple leaves, I love all of it. Not only are things cooler after the sultry summer, but the vibrant colors are insanely beautiful. Spring gets most of the international attention thanks to the cherry blossoms, but autumn has always had a stronger pull on me. Maybe it is the longer season, maybe it is the fact that half the country seems to catch fire before winter arrives. Whatever the reason, once September rolls around, I start looking north and uphill.
What I am chasing has a name. In Japan, autumn foliage is known as Koyo. The word covers the reds and golds that spread across the country as summer gives way to colder weather, with Japanese maples supplying most of the scarlet and ginkgo trees doing their considerable best in yellow. The habit of going out specifically to admire those leaves is old. It developed as an aristocratic pastime in the court of the Heian period (794–1185), where seasonal outings and poetry were part of the cultural calendar. Autumn color was already something to seek out rather than merely notice through a window.
By the Edo period (1603–1868), autumn leaf viewing had spread well beyond the court and into the wider population as domestic travel became easier. In that sense, Koyo became autumn’s answer to spring cherry-blossom viewing, with people heading to mountains, gardens, temples, and scenic valleys simply because the trees had changed color. The palette is broader than red maples, too. Japanese maples are the stars, but golden ginkgo trees line major city avenues, while silver pampas grass can turn entire hillsides pale gold under the low autumn sun. You could spend the whole season chasing just one of those. Naturally, I have tried to chase all of them instead.
The good news is that Koyo lasts for months if you are willing to move. Color begins in September in Hokkaido’s northernmost extremes, works south and downhill through October, reaches major cities such as Tokyo and Kyoto around mid-to-late November, then hangs on in the far south into December. Japan’s geography effectively gives autumn several acts. Mountains can be blazing while the city below is still green, and a trip that misses peak color at one elevation may catch it perfectly a little farther downhill. The archipelago spans more than 3,000 kilometers from north to south, giving those seasonal shifts plenty of room to unfold.
I have chased autumn all over Japan, although for years my schedule was basically held hostage by familiarization trips crammed into the last quarter of the year. Government and tourism work tended to pile up exactly when I wanted to be out photographing leaves on my own terms, which is how I occasionally ended up posting maple photos in late January, long after everyone else had moved on to snow. Such was the glamorous machinery of tourism promotion. These days I have far more freedom to choose where I go and when, which matters with Koyo because timing is everything. A famous maple two weeks too early is, after all, just a tree.
Why the Leaves Change
The science is simpler than it sounds. As autumn nights grow longer, trees stop producing as much chlorophyll, the pigment responsible for keeping leaves green, and the chlorophyll already there begins to break down. That reveals carotenoids, the yellow and orange pigments that were hiding inside the leaf all summer. Red works differently. Anthocyanins are made fresh in autumn when bright days continue producing sugars but cold nights slow their movement out of the leaf, leaving more sugar trapped inside. Add sunlight and you get stronger red color.
Alas, the best displays need the weather to cooperate. Warm, sunny days keep sugar production going, while cold nights that stay above freezing help build the anthocyanins responsible for vivid reds; too much warmth or wet weather tends to leave the season looking flatter. Japan has another advantage as well. The country supports far more native tree species than Europe because much of the archipelago escaped the worst Ice Age glaciation, leaving forests here as refuges for species that vanished elsewhere. Add Japan’s long north-to-south spread and its steep mountains, and you get enormous variation over a relatively small area. Elevation adds another axis, rising from sea level to 3,776 meters at Mt. Fuji.
By the way, not everything worth seeing in autumn is even a leaf. While the maples take most of the billing, Susuki, Japan’s silver pampas grass, quietly puts on one of the season’s best shows, turning silver and gold as the low afternoon sun moves across it. It photographs beautifully, and the great stands are worth going out of your way for. The Inatori Hosono Highlands on the Izu Peninsula, Sengokuhara in Hakone, and Soni Kogen in Nara all have sweeping grasslands that change character with the light. They are also increasingly rare, as open grassland maintained for generations has gradually given way to forestry. I love a good red maple as much as anyone, but sometimes the best move in autumn is to stop looking at the trees.
The Koyo Front
Koyo crosses Japan almost like a weather front, only it runs opposite the spring cherry-blossom season. The blossoms move north as the country warms, while autumn color moves south as temperatures fall, descending from mountaintops into valleys and cities at the same time. That makes latitude only half the story. Hokkaido’s high Daisetsuzan peaks can begin turning in September, well before much of the country is even thinking seriously about autumn, while Aomori and the lower parts of Hokkaido generally come into color around mid-October. Look at a national map in October and Japan can appear to be running several seasons simultaneously.
Altitude can scramble the neat north-to-south order. Mt. Ishizuchi in Shikoku, the tallest peak in western Japan, can reach its best color as early as the start of October, despite sitting far south of places that may still be green at lower elevations. That is why I pay as much attention to height as latitude when looking at autumn timing. Mountain ranges effectively create their own calendars, with the upper slopes turning first and the color stepping downward over the following weeks. It also gives you room to recover from bad timing. Miss the top by several days and there may still be excellent color waiting lower down.
For all that altitude scrambles, the far south still comes much later. Kagoshima, for example, barely starts showing serious autumn color until December, with the higher ground providing one of the better chances to catch the season after much of the rest of Japan has already moved on. That long spread is what makes Koyo so useful for travel planning. You are rarely dealing with one national peak date. Instead, Japan offers a rolling sequence from September through December, and moving a few hundred kilometers or climbing into the mountains can shift the season by weeks.
The annoying part is that the old averages have become less dependable. Autumn color has been arriving later and behaving less predictably as the climate warms, so dates that worked reliably in the past now deserve a little skepticism. Peak color at any one place also tends to last only two to three weeks, which sounds generous until a warm spell, heavy rain, or strong wind decides otherwise. I still use the usual seasonal windows when planning, but I would never lock an entire trip around them without checking a current forecast first. Flights and hotels may enjoy certainty. Trees, rather inconveniently, do not.
Where to See It
Tokyo gives you more options than most people realize. Rising 599 meters, Mt. Takao is the obvious choice for an easy day trip from Shinjuku, famous, accessible, and predictably busy once the leaves turn, while Mt. Mitake offers a quieter mountain alternative without leaving the wider Tokyo area. Back in the city, Rikugi-en and Koishikawa Korakuen deliver the classic garden version of Koyo, complete with carefully framed maples and ponds. Then there is the ginkgo avenue at Meiji Jingu Gaien, which goes completely gold later in the season.
Kyoto in late November is spectacular. It is also a zoo if it’s not the middle of a pandemic. Tofuku-ji and Eikan-do are two of the city’s great maple-viewing spots, and both can become extremely crowded once the leaves reach their peak. The combination of old temple grounds, red maples, and late-autumn light is exactly why people come, so complaining that everyone else had the same idea would be a little rich. Still, timing matters. Go on a weekday morning if you can, preferably early, and you give yourself at least a fighting chance of seeing the place rather than the backs of several hundred jackets. Kyoto remains worth it. Just do not mistake famous for peaceful.
Tohoku is where I would look if I wanted more space around the scenery. In Akita, Kakunodate pairs autumn color with one of Japan’s best-preserved samurai districts, giving the season a very different backdrop from the temple gardens farther south. Nearby Lake Tazawa puts the leaves against a mountain-ringed lake instead, which makes the whole area easy to combine into a broader autumn trip. This is exactly the sort of northern Japan routing I like because the season arrives earlier and the landscapes are doing more than one job at once. Conveniently, the samurai district and lake both sit within Semboku, the city created when Kakunodate and Tazawako merged in 2005.
Farther north, Aomori brings vast forests into the picture, with autumn color extending across whole mountain slopes and wooded valleys as the season advances through the prefecture. Yamagata offers something different again at Yamadera, the temple complex built up the side of a mountain. The climb puts you directly into the changing elevation, with autumn color spreading across the surrounding slopes as temperatures drop. This is one reason I keep coming back to Tohoku when thinking about autumn. The region has space, mountains, old towns, and enough variation that Koyo becomes part of the trip rather than the only reason for making it.
Western Honshu has several excellent highland options once the season begins moving south. Mt. Koya in Wakayama is the obvious heavyweight, a Buddhist monastery town surrounded by mountains where the cooler elevation brings autumn color earlier than the lowlands around Osaka. Farther west, Engyo-ji sits above Himeji on Mt. Shosha, putting an old temple complex directly into the forested slopes. Both work because the setting and the leaves reinforce each other without requiring much explanation. You are already somewhere worth going, and autumn simply turns the dial up. The monk Shoku founded Engyo-ji in 966, and more than a millennium later, its grounds appeared in the 2003 film The Last Samurai.
Keep going southwest to Shikoku, which rewards anyone willing to get into the mountains. Mt. Ishizuchi can reach peak color around the start of October on its high slopes, making it one of the earliest serious autumn options this far south. The Iya Valley follows with a completely different scale, its steep mountains and remote settlements sitting inside one of the island’s most dramatic landscapes. Neither is the sort of place I would recommend for someone trying to squeeze autumn into a spare afternoon between major cities. Good. Shikoku is better when you give it time, and Koyo is another excuse to do exactly that.
Lastly, Kyushu closes out the season. The volcanic Kirishima Mountain Range is one of the places where autumn color can linger into December, long after Hokkaido and Tohoku have moved well into winter. That makes it useful for travelers arriving late, but the appeal goes beyond calendar convenience. The mountains give the changing leaves elevation, volcanic terrain, and enough temperature variation to produce a proper final act for the season. By this point, much of Japan has already gone bare. Kirishima is still hanging on. If your trip falls at the wrong end of November or slips into December, heading south is often smarter than mourning the maples you missed farther north.
Until next time travelers…
