Japan observation deck
Hosooka Observatory
You can see 151 km from here, looking south-west.
Calculating the panorama…
Drag to turn around. The relief is drawn 2.2 times taller so the ridges can be read; far ridges are paler, as in the real air.
The view
Up to 151 km away.
Calculated on the relief one degree at a time, up to 250 km, with the curvature of the Earth and the refraction of the air: what stands above the horizon from here.
Our own rating, from the relief and the climate only: open horizon (35 points), how far you see (25), sea and named peaks in view (20) and clear months (20).
- 151 kmFarthest ridgelooking south-west
- 100%Open horizonof the circle where the horizon is below your eyes
- 5%Seaof the circle where the horizon is the sea
- 128Peaks in viewnamed summits that rise above the relief in front
- 50 mAltitudeabove the sea, at the highest point of the viewpoint
The 128 peaks you can name from here
From west to east as you turn around: height, distance and direction. Each one links to its guide on Peakyas, our mountain atlas.
From the relief only: buildings, trees and haze are not in the model. On a hazy day you see much less; 250 km is the limit of our calculation.
The sun
The best sunsets are from October to December.
When the sun really disappears from this viewpoint — behind the relief or into the sea — and in which direction, on the 15th of each month, in local time.
- Jansouth-west4 min before the sea-level sunset34%
- Febwest6 min before the sea-level sunset33%
- Marwest6 min before the sea-level sunset29%
- Aprwest6 min before the sea-level sunset28%
- Maynorth-west10 min before the sea-level sunset26%
- Junnorth-west10 min before the sea-level sunset24%
- Julnorth-west8 min before the sea-level sunset21%
- Augwest8 min before the sea-level sunset21%
- Sepwest6 min before the sea-level sunset27%
- Octwest6 min before the sea-level sunset38%
- Novsouth-west4 min before the sea-level sunset38%
- Decsouth-west4 min before the sea-level sunset37%
- Time: when the sun goes behind the horizon you see from here.
- Minutes: how much earlier the relief hides the sun.
- %: share of clear sky that month (NASA, 2001–2020).
The highlighted months are the clearest. Golden hour starts about an hour before.
The place
Hosooka Observatory.
Hosooka Observatory is an observation deck in Japan, 50 m above the sea.
On a clear day the farthest ridge you can see is 151 km away, looking south-west.
The sea fills 5% of the horizon.
128 named peaks rise above the relief in front; the most prominent is Mount Shari (1,547 m), 77 km away.
The horizon is open, below your eyes, over 100% of the circle.
The skies are clearest from October to December.

Get there and stay
- Going upCheck the opening hours before you go: towers and decks close in bad weather.
- 達古武オートキャンプ場campsite · 3.5 km · 3 within 10 km
- Kushiro shitsugen Touro Youth Hostelplace to stay · 7.0 km · 8 within 10 km
- Kushironearest town · 15 km in a straight linePlaces to stay in KushiroBooking.com · sponsored link↗
- Kushiro Airport (KUH)nearest airport with scheduled flights · 22 km in a straight lineCar hire at KUH airport (Kushiro)Discover Cars · sponsored link↗
Plan the visit
A guided tour, a bed nearby, a car.
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.
From above
The viewpoint and its surroundings.
The satellite image of the 6 × 6 km around the viewpoint, with what OpenStreetMap shows nearby.

Around, in OpenStreetMap
- 3other viewpoints within 5 km細岡展望台 Kushiro Marsh Hosooka Observatory, 旧;夢が丘展望台, 展望広場
- 1named peaks within 5 km岩保木山
- 5car parks within 3 km
- 3campsites within 10 km達古武オートキャンプ場, 塘路元村キャンプ場, 鶴の里キャンプフィールド
- 8places to stay within 10 kmKushiro shitsugen Touro Youth Hostel, ホテル愛, ビジネスホテル桶谷 and 5 more
- cable car and funicular stations within 5 km
- marked trails within 3 km
- shelters and huts within 5 km
- visitor centres within 5 km
- restaurants and cafés within 3 km
Counted in OpenStreetMap, the map anyone can edit. A low number may just mean nobody has mapped it yet.
In our other atlases
What you see from Hosooka Observatory, and what is near.
Everything around this viewpoint — mountains, water, forests, birds, caves and the night sky — in the family's atlases.
Figures from the sister sites' databases (Wikidata, HydroATLAS, GeoNames, OpenStreetMap, GBIF). Links open when each site is online.
Photographs
The view, as people saw it.
Where these figures come from
| Name and type | Wikidata (Q11605826) · CC0 |
|---|---|
| Sun | J. Meeus, Astronomical Algorithms |
| Peaks in view | Peakyas (Wikidata, CC0) |
| Panorama and altitude | Copernicus DEM GLO-90 / GLO-30 · © DLR e.V., © Airbus Defence and Space GmbH, Copernicus/ESA |
| Clouds | NASA POWER (CERES SYN1deg, 2001–2020; MERRA-2) |
| What is around | © OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL |
| Images | EOX Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 · CC BY 4.0; Wikimedia Commons |
| Sister atlases | Peakyas, Islandyas, Lakeyas, Forestyas, Birdyas, Riveryas |
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, dark skies, viewpoints, birdwatching or forests?
Same idea, other landscapes: field atlases built on open data, in seven languages.






