Yoshino, Nara Prefecture: Kinpusen-ji and the thousands of sakura trees.

Yoshino (吉野町 Yoshino-chō^?) is a town located in Yoshino District, Nara Prefecture, Japan.

Located in the northern portion of Yoshino District, the majority of the town is covered by mountains.

For adherents of Shugendo, Yoshino is the traditional beginning of the Mount Ōmine pilgrimage trail; however, many hikers to begin and end their trek from the Dorogawa district of Tenkawa Village.

Mount Yoshino is famous for its many thousands of sakura trees.

These flowering specimen trees were planted in four groves at different altitudes, in part so that the famed trees would come into bloom at different times of the spring. A 1714 account explained that, on their climb to the top, travelers would be able to enjoy the lower 1,000 cherry trees at the base, the middle 1,000 on the way, the upper 1,000 toward the top, and the 1,000 in the precincts of the inner shrine at the top.^[1]

Kimpusen-ji (金峯山寺 Kinpusen-ji^?) is the head temple of a branch of the Shugendō religion called Kimpusen-Shugendō in Yoshino district, Nara prefecture, Japan. According to tradition, it was founded by En no Ozunu, who propagated a form of mountain asceticism drawing from Shintō and Buddhist beliefs. The temple's main building "Zaō-Hall" (Zaōdō) is the second largest wooden structure in Japan, right after the daibutsuden at Tōdai-ji in Nara. Kimpusen-ji is a junction in a series of stops on pilgrimage routes.

In 2004, it was designated as part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site under the name Sacred Sites and Pilgrimage Routes in the Kii Mountain Range.

A Shinto shrine dedicated to Inari is attached to the main compound.

Inari Ōkami (稲荷大神^?, also Oinari) is the Japanese kami of fertility, rice, agriculture, foxes, industry, and worldly success and one of the principal kami of Shinto.