Live camera
Kurushima Strait live camera — Imabari, Ehime
One of Japan's three great tidal races. The pattern on the surface flips each time the tide turns, and large ships pass through in single file.
Sample August 2026What you are looking at
One of the three fastest tidal currents in Japan. It is the narrow channel between Imabari and Oshima, and the water of the Inland Sea has to run east and west through it.
It is fast here because high and low tide occur at different times at the eastern and western ends of the Inland Sea, and this one narrow strait takes up the whole of that difference. The current is so strong that ships navigate this strait by a special rule, with vessels running with the tide and vessels running against it assigned to different channels. That is why the ships in the frame are lined up on the same side. The current reaches close to ten knots at its fastest.
The Kurushima Kaikyo bridge across the strait is three suspension bridges joined end to end, 4,105 metres in all, opened in 1999. Islands partway across gave it footings, so the span could be divided into three. More than five hundred vessels pass through the strait in a day.
There was an age when being able to read this current was itself a form of power. In the medieval Seto Inland Sea the Murakami sea lords held this strait, taking a toll from the ships that passed and, in return, reading the tide and piloting them through. Kurushima, the island in frame, is the one the branch of the family took its name from, and a castle stood on it. Here the speed of the tide was somebody's authority.
The flow peaks about halfway between high and low water on a spring-tide day, and the streaks on the surface stand out then. Open it at slack water and you get nothing but a calm sea.
Updates come once an hour. Nothing shows after dark.
About this camera
| Place | Imabari, Ehime |
| Format | Still, hourly |
| Time zone | Asia/Tokyo (UTC+9) |
| Category | Sea |
| Operator | Ministry of the Environment — Internet Nature Institute |
| Terms of use | PDL 1.0 |
The operator's own page
The footage belongs to each agency. This site is an unofficial guide, and each sample frame was copied once per camera under that agency's terms of use.
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