River
The Yamato River: 1 Live Camera in Japan
The river that gathers the water of the Nara basin, cuts across the Ikoma hills and reaches Osaka Bay, on a Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport live stream. Much of its course runs through built-up city.
What you can see
The Yamato is the drain of the Nara basin. The Saho and every other river in the basin feed into it, and it leaves through the narrow gap between the Ikoma and Kongo ranges into the Osaka plain. The feed includes points on the Saho and other tributaries.
Its westward course is something people built. The old Yamato ran north across the Osaka plain and joined the Yodo; after repeated flooding, the channel was moved west in 1704. What is on screen is that channel.
Which is why the lower river runs straight, with the city right up against both banks — nothing like the meander of a river left to itself.
Cameras you can watch now: 1
All 1 are live video. Tap one to open it in the camera list.
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Sample October 2026
Yamato and Saho Rivers
Nara / Osaka · River
They gather the Nara basin, cut through the Ikoma hills and reach Osaka Bay. A long stretch runs through built-up areas.
When to watch
On an ordinary day this river reads best in the daytime. It runs through the middle of a city, so people and bicycles pass along the embankment and trains cross the bridges. The surroundings move more than the water does.
It rises in the rainy and typhoon seasons. Because the basin collects first and then passes through one narrow gap, the lag between upstream rain and downstream rise is unusually readable. Even so, take evacuation decisions from your local authority.
The feed rotates between points, is experimental, and can stop without notice.
If it isn't showing
This is a cycling feed: one video steps through a series of points along the river in turn. You wait for the place you want, and you cannot choose the order. At night only the lit sections show; the water itself is barely visible. The feed is a trial service and can stop without notice.
The camera's location reads "Nara and Osaka". This site counts a camera under the first prefecture named, so it lands among Nara's three, on the Nara page. Three cameras carry Osaka in their location — this one, the Yodo and Uji, and the Ina and Mo — but none of them names Osaka first, so there is no Osaka page. The rivers of the Osaka plain are assembled only here and on the Yodo page.
Before the diversion, the Yamato drained into the Yodo. Read this page with The Yodo River System and you can see where the water of the Osaka plain goes. Elsewhere in Kansai there are The Rivers of the Kii Peninsula and The Yura River, and a little further west Rivers and Coast in Hyogo.
Where to find The Yamato River
Agencies publishing the cameras on this page
- MLIT river live streams (Government Standard Terms 2.0) — Official site
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.