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The story
According to the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare’s fiscal 2024 sanitation administration report, the number of public bathhouses (sento) nationwide has fallen to 2,730 facilities — meaning more than 80% have disappeared over the past 50 years. By prefecture, Yamagata now has zero sento, while Aomori ranks first nationwide with 22.40 facilities per 100,000 residents. The article drew responses from a wide range of generations on 5ch, with users sharing memories of visiting bathhouses back when they had no bath at home, discussing how rising water and gas bills are squeezing bathhouse operators, and comparing regional differences in hot spring and bathhouse culture.
Published 9/20 (Sun) 10:00
Asahi Shimbun
Neighborhood public bathhouses keep disappearing. According to the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare’s sanitation administration report (fiscal 2024), sento classified as “public bathhouses” number 2,730 nationwide — meaning more than 80% have vanished over the past half century. By prefecture, Yamagata has become a “zero-sento prefecture,” while Aomori, with 22.40 facilities per 100,000 people, can be called “Japan’s most bathhouse-loving prefecture.”
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
so apparently it's standard practice to keep your own bottles in the car
Re: #6
There's a new-build apartment put up where an old machiya townhouse in the historic district used to stand — and unbelievably, it's shower-only, no bathtub.
Honestly, my real thought is "you're paying 80,000 yen rent for THAT?" @a prefectural capital in the Kinki region
On top of that, my ward hands out gas and electric subsidies to every household
Bless, truly bless
Between water and fuel costs it just stopped being worth it
but since prices are regulated as a daily necessity, there's no room to actually turn a profit
meanwhile the pricier "super sento" spa complexes are actually doing well
When I was a kid, it wasn't rare for our bath to break down and for us to end up at the bathhouse
Wait, baths actually break down? Were they just more failure-prone back then?
I'm in my 40s and I've never really heard of that
no wonder people went to the bathhouse
I did the same thing when I was boarding during my student days — used the local sento
First I've ever heard of that
We had no bath at home so we'd go every 2-3 days
That coffee milk after a bath hit so good
Come on
how old even are you
you're past the average life expectancy at this point (lol)
The hot spring I hit up in Beppu about 10 years ago was 100 yen
https://1010.or.jp/menu/history/src_rekishi/rekishi04.gif
That'd just mean more creepy guys lurking with just their eyes above the water ("crocodiles")
My heart is that of a woman!
worst case they don't even have soap or shampoo
Wait, isn't the whole point of a sento that you bring your own basin loaded with soap, shampoo, and a towel,
with your change of clothes wrapped up in a bath towel?
even showering feels like a hassle
That's nasty, don't hold up some outlier as your example
A bath before work is just standard there
Didn't know that was a thing
but out in the suburbs it's a wasteland
my parents' place is in some city out in Kitatama and there's only one bathhouse left
They could just deregulate the pricing, that's all it'd take
but nobody's pushing for that law to change, so sento are probably doomed
(Come on, you should've phrased that as "80 pah-sento" — a pun blending "percent" and "sento")
wasn't it the case that literally every single municipality has one?
about 300 yen and body soap and shampoo are included
Yamagata's basically paradise
Hokkaido's kind of the same. Except you need a car
Guess a super sento has a lower bar to clear (´・ω・`)
That's the song about the worst boyfriend ever, leaving his girlfriend waiting outside in the dead of winter
don't soak so long, man
Background and Key Points
Under Japan’s Public Bathhouse Act, each prefecture sets a price cap on sento admission fees by ordinance, meaning operators can’t just raise prices whenever they want. The thread’s suggestion to “just deregulate the pricing” is pointing straight at this structure — even as water and fuel costs climb, prices can’t easily follow, which is considered one driver behind the wave of closures. Also, Aomori’s title as “Japan’s top sento prefecture” is based on facilities per 100,000 residents, not on how popular any individual bathhouse actually is. Likewise, Yamagata having zero sento doesn’t mean bathing culture there has died out — day-trip hot spring facilities simply became widespread and effectively replaced the sento business model, a nuance the raw numbers alone don’t convey. The thread was also full of firsthand stories from an era when homes had no bathtub, reflecting how changing housing conditions are part of what’s driving people away from bathhouses.
※This article is compiled and summarized from the 5ch (Newsplus) thread “【♨】Bathhouses Down 80% in 50 Years — What Japan’s Top Sento Prefecture Reveals About Changing Bath Culture.”
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