Enoshima

Located south and west of Yokohama, the Shonan region of Kanagawa Prefecture is known for beaches along Sagami Bay and a “laidback lifestyle” seen in other seaside places like Southern California, the Mediterranean Coast of Spain, and France. Before the 1880s, no one cared about the coastline and beaches other than fishers, kelp farmers, and others who made their living on the sea. Somewhere around the middle of the Meiji Era, this began to change as the Western concepts of swimming in the ocean and sunbathing for leisure took hold amongst the Japanese aristocracy. The wealthy class built many “besshō” beach houses, and the area slowly began to grow into the Shonan we know today. Inspired by China? The Kanji Chinese characters spelling out Shōnan (湘南) are 湘　which is taken from 相 in 相模国 (Sagami-no-kuni) which is the old name of this region, and Minami/Nan/南 which means “south.” Legend says the area resembled the Chinese region of Hunan, called “瀟湘湖南 xiāo xiāng hú nán” in Chinese; in Japanese, those same characters are pronounced “shōshō konan” Take the second and fourth characters to abbreviate, and you get 湘南. Postwar Prominence After WWII, the Shonan region became known for its beach culture…