The 17 Hot Springs of Hakone

People have been soaking in Hakone's hot springs since at least the eighth century, but the area's reputation for healing waters really spread during the Edo period, when a 1811 guide catalogued seven distinct onsen and described their individual properties, from taste and temperature to claimed medicinal effects. Exploration through the Meiji era and drilling advances in the 1930s gradually expanded that list to today's 17. The classification now groups springs by location rather than by actual mineral composition, since most of the differences between individual springs are minor. Hotels and ryokan across Hakone draw from these sources, each source reflecting the geology beneath a different part of the volcanic landscape.