
In numbers.
83m
Height
OpenStreetMap
2.1m³/s
Average flow
estimate
Jun–Sep
Best months
1.7MW
Water power
estimate
The water at Shindō Falls, month by month
It roars from June to July.
The fullest months: from June to July. The thinnest: from December to February.
- 0.7 m³/sJan
- 1.0 m³/sFeb
- 1.4 m³/sMar
- 1.7 m³/sApr
- 1.9 m³/sMay
- 3.9 m³/sJun
- 4.7 m³/sJul
- 3.3 m³/sAug
- 2.6 m³/sSep
- 1.7 m³/sOct
- 1.2 m³/sNov
- 0.9 m³/sDec
From about 0.71 m³/s in the lowest month to 4.7 m³/s in the highest. Best months to go, with plenty of water and pleasant days: from June to September.
Estimate: the timing comes from rain, snowmelt and evaporation (NASA POWER, 1991–2020); the amounts from the river model of HydroATLAS (WaterGAP, 1971–2000). Dams upstream can change the real flow.
Shindō Falls is a waterfall in Japan. The water falls 83 m.
Getting there.
- Hikijinearest town · 7.9 km in a straight line
- Parking 170 m awaynearest car park in OpenStreetMap, straight line
- Kumamoto Airport (KMJ)nearest airport with scheduled flights · 51 km in a straight lineCar hire at FUK airport (Fukuoka)Discover Cars · Affiliate link↗
- From June to Septemberbest months to go (estimate)
Plan your visit
Stay, explore and get there
Some links above are affiliate links: if you book through them we may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you. It never changes what the data on this page says.
How big is it?
How big it really is.
Height of the drop as mapped in OpenStreetMap (© OpenStreetMap contributors). Buildings and the person are drawn at the same scale.
1.7 MW
About 2.1 m³/s falling 83 m: the power of the water as it drops.
- enough to power about 426 homes, if it were all turned into electricity
Power of falling water = density × gravity × flow × height. Average flow and height as shown above; an estimate.
Seen from the sky.
8 × 8 km of cloud-free satellite image, with what OpenStreetMap knows around the falls.
N
2 km
Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 (EOX, CC BY 4.0), 8 × 8 km, north up. Points © OpenStreetMap contributors.
The line follows the river as mapped in OpenStreetMap; heights from the 30 m Copernicus model, which smooths narrow drops — the published height of the falls is the one above.
Around the falls the river drops 207 m in 2.9 km. Here the river runs about 48 m below the lower rim of its valley.
What is around.
- 3viewpoints屋上展望休憩所, 山里の湯, 飯田高原
- —waymarked walking routes
- 7car parks
- —swimming spots
- —picnic sites
- —toilets
- 4information boards and visitor centres
- 2bus stops within 1 km
- 2other named waterfalls within 4 km子滝, 雌滝
- —caves
- 2campsitesくじゅうエイドステーション
- 6hotels, B&Bs and huts within 6 kmオーベルジュ・コスモス, 飯田ヒュッテ, ほっけいん温泉別館 花山酔 and 3 more
- 4restaurants and cafés within 3 km
Counted in OpenStreetMap, the map anyone can edit, up to 2 km around the falls (unless noted). A low number may just mean nobody has mapped it yet. © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL).
Towns nearby
- Hikiji7.9 km in a straight line
- Tsukawaki14 km in a straight line
- Yufu14 km in a straight line
- Miyahara15 km in a straight line
- Akababa16 km in a straight line
- Ubuyama19 km in a straight line
Weather
The weather, month by month.
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Afternoon °C | 4 | 7 | 10 | 16 | 21 | 23 | 27 | 28 | 24 | 18 | 13 | 6 |
| Night °C | -4 | -3 | 0 | 5 | 10 | 15 | 19 | 19 | 16 | 10 | 4 | -2 |
| Rain & snow (mm) | 69 | 101 | 129 | 156 | 186 | 398 | 396 | 216 | 226 | 125 | 96 | 79 |
| Wet days | 9 | 9 | 12 | 12 | 12 | 18 | 19 | 19 | 15 | 9 | 9 | 9 |
| Sun h/day | 3.7 | 4.4 | 5.5 | 6.0 | 6.1 | 4.0 | 5.0 | 6.4 | 5.0 | 5.2 | 4.5 | 3.6 |
| Snow on the ground (cm) | 6 | 5 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
Long-term averages 1991–2020 (NASA POWER) for a cell about 55 km wide, with temperatures carried to the height of the falls (753 m) at −6.5 °C per 1,000 m. Not a forecast.
Photos
Through visitors' eyes.
Recent years
Wet years and dry years
Rain of each month as a share of the 1991–2020 average. A wet season above 100 % usually means a fuller waterfall.
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 173% | 122% | 101% | 55% | 121% | 115% | 212% | 42% | 148% | 78% | 72% | 68% |
| 2021 | 71% | 100% | 103% | 80% | 224% | 50% | 58% | 434% | 75% | 32% | 110% | 38% |
| 2022 | 80% | 29% | 120% | 126% | 67% | 68% | 92% | 127% | 157% | 43% | 55% | 47% |
| 2023 | 126% | 86% | 107% | 150% | 195% | 150% | 144% | 125% | 37% | 32% | 53% | 74% |
| 2024 | 59% | 184% | 192% | 149% | 138% | 113% | 89% | 136% | 84% | 186% | 202% | 16% |
| 2025 | 38% | 53% | 119% | 72% | 218% | 117% | 44% | 246% | 116% | 85% | 36% | 72% |
130% wetter than usual 70% drier than usual
Compare with the waterfalls nearby.
About these numbers
| Names, height, width, river | Wikidata (Q11660657) · CC0 |
|---|---|
| Height of the drop | © OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL |
| River flow and catchment | HydroATLAS / RiverATLAS v1.0 (Linke et al. 2019) · CC BY 4.0 |
| Climate | NASA POWER, 1991–2020 |
| Relief, river profile, 3D model | Copernicus DEM GLO-30 · © DLR e.V., © Airbus Defence and Space GmbH, Copernicus/ESA |
| Paths, viewpoints, parking | © OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL |
| Images | EOX Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 · CC BY 4.0; Wikimedia Commons |
Every figure is an average, an estimate or a count from a public dataset. Licences and methods: data sources.
The family
Do you prefer beaches, lakes, mountains, waterfalls, islands, rivers, canyons, caves or dark skies?
Same idea, other landscapes: field atlases built on open data, month by month, in seven languages.






