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Ainan, Ehime
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Seventeen-million-year-old rocks at Tatsukushi preserve ancient animal footprints, burrows and even fossilized droppings.
Fourteen-year-old John Manjiro was swept from this coast in 1841, rescued by an American whaling ship and eventually became an important bridge between Japan and the United States.
Tatsukushi Bay supports more than one hundred coral species even though it lies far north of the tropical seas usually associated with coral reefs.
Cape Ashizuri contains rapakivi granite found nowhere else in Japan.
The warm Kuroshio Current allows tropical and subtropical marine life to thrive alongside temperate species around southwestern Shikoku.
Tatsukushi and Uwakai became pioneering Japanese marine protected areas, helping establish the concept that important landscapes continue beneath the sea.
Researchers have documented more than one hundred coral species and hundreds of kinds of sea slugs in the waters around Tatsukushi.
Some of Tatsukushi's bizarre folds and deformed rocks preserve evidence of powerful disturbances in ancient underwater sediments.
Cape Ashizuri's granite began as magma that cooled deep underground roughly thirteen to fourteen million years ago.
The Kuroshio interacts with the seafloor near Ashizuri in ways that help bring nutrients toward the surface and support abundant marine life.
Whale sharks, ocean sunfish, tuna and other large ocean animals can occur in the Kuroshio-influenced waters around the park.
Loggerhead sea turtles come ashore to nest on beaches within the park, including Oki Beach.
Reaching Kongofukuji historically required pilgrims to make one of the Shikoku pilgrimage's longest journeys between temples.
Yusu-Mizugaura contains roughly one thousand tiny stone-walled fields climbing an exceptionally steep slope above Uwakai.
Families at Sotodomari built massive stone walls around their homes to help protect the village from typhoons and powerful seasonal winds.
Uwakai's deeply indented coastline creates calm bays ideally suited to aquaculture and cultivation of Akoya pearls.
Visitors to Uwajima can open a cultivated Akoya oyster, extract its pearl and turn the pearl into jewelry.
Flowing water has polished Nametoko Gorge's granite into smooth channels, pools and natural slides now used for canyoning.
Minokoshi contains an impressive shikorosango coral community designated a Kochi Prefectural Natural Monument.
Hakusan Domon is an enormous natural opening carved by the Pacific into Cape Ashizuri's granite coast.
At Oki Beach, surfers and white-clad Shikoku pilgrims can share the same stretch of Pacific coastline.
Kochi's famous bonito tataki grew from fishing culture and is traditionally prepared by rapidly searing the outside of the fish.
Tosashimizu is Japan's leading producer of sodabushi, a smoked and dried fish product prized for making deeply flavored dashi.
Uwajima taimeshi grew from fishermen's cuisine and combines raw sea bream with a seasoned egg-based sauce poured over hot rice.
Uwakai's jakoten uses small local fish ground with much of the skin and bones intact, turning the day's smaller catch into a regional specialty.
John Manjiro's Pacific voyage began near Cape Ashizuri; he later helped Japan understand Western navigation and language.
Tosashimizu is known for sodabushi, smoked and dried frigate mackerel used to make richly flavored dashi.
Kochi's katsuo no tataki is traditionally seared rapidly over burning straw for a fragrant, smoky exterior.
The Uwakai coast's sheltered inlets support pearl cultivation alongside fishing communities.
Kongofukuji is temple thirty-eight on the Shikoku Eighty-Eight Temple Pilgrimage.
Yusu-Mizugaura's steep stone-walled terraces demonstrate how coastal families created farmland above the sea.
Tatsukushi's ancient sediments preserve trace fossils, including animal burrows, rather than only shells and bones.
The Kuroshio Current brings warm-water marine species to the southwestern coast of Shikoku.
