Jigokudani Monkey Park

Jigokudani Monkey Park (Jigokudani Yaen Kōen) is located in Yamanouchi, Nagano Prefecture, Japan, about 3.5 hours from Tokyo. It is part of the Joshinetsu Kogen National Park (locally known as Shigakogen), and is located in the valley of the Yokoyu-River, in the northern part of the prefecture. The name Jigokudani, meaning "Hell's Valley", is due to the steam and boiling water that bubbles out of small crevices in the frozen ground, surrounded by steep cliffs and formidably cold and hostile forests. Originally, Japanese macaques lived in nearby mountains such as Shiga Kogen, but due to the development of ski resorts and forest clearing in the 1950s, they were driven out of their mountain habitat and came down to human settlements, becoming pests. The heavy snowfalls (snow covers the ground for four months a year), an elevation of 850 m (2, 800 ft), and being only accessible via a narrow 2 km (1.2 mi) footpath through the forest, keeps it uncrowded despite the park being relatively well known. It is famous for its large population of wild Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata), commonly referred to by foreigners as snow monkeys, that go to the valley during the winter, foraging elsewhere in the national park during the warmer months. The monkeys descend from the steep cliffs and forest to sit in the warm waters of the onsen (hotsprings), and return to the security of the forests in

Park data from Wikidata (CC0). Summary from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA).