Updated November 12, 2024

If you travel to Japan, you will probably visit various prefectures, and each prefecture has its own local ramen. One of the best ways to get a deeper understanding of the prefecture is to eat what the people there love. Because there are so many different types of ramen in Japan, people take pride in their own prefecture's ramen. 
Here are some of the most famous local ramen!

Hokkaido: Sapporo Ramen

Sapporo ramen comes in multiple flavors, but miso is the most famous. The basic style is a pork and vegetable-based broth with yellow, medium-thick, wavy noodles. Butter and corn are often added as toppings.

Fukushima: Kitakata Ramen

The soup is basically a clear pork bone broth flavored with soy sauce and has a light flavor. Thick, flat, frizzy noodles made with hight water content. The noodles have a smooth and chewy texture, and because they are thick, they are well mixed with the soup. The toppings are simple: pork and green onions.

Niigata :Tsubame Backfat Ramen

The noodles are very thick, and the soup has a dark soy sauce flavor with a broth of seafood such as niboshi (dried sardines). It is also characterized by pork back fat covering the surface. The amount of back fat can be adjusted to your preference. Onion is often used as a garnish instead of green onion.

Tochigi: Sano-Ramen

Traditionally, the noodles are made using a bamboo stick called "Aotake-uchi," which gives the noodles a strong texture. The clear, light soy sauce-based soup is a perfect match.

Chiba: Takeoka-style ramen

The most distinctive feature of this ramen is the soup, which is made by simply adding hot water in which the noodles are boiled to a soy sauce broth in which Char-siu pork has been simmered. It is topped with large pieces of Char-siu pork, bamboo shoots, nori (seaweed), and chopped onions.

Toyama: Toyama Black

Toyama Black Ramen is also characterized by its soup, which is made by boiling down soy sauce and adding black pepper. Because of its strong flavor, historically it was sometimes eaten with rice. The toppings are no different from regular ramen, such as pickled bamboo shoots, nori, etc., but the amount of green onions is relatively large.

Fukuoka: Hakata Ramen

Hakata Ramen features a milky white bone broth and extra thin, straight noodles. The pork bones are boiled over high heat, which causes the collagen in the bones to dissolve, resulting in a cloudy soup. You can choose the hardness of the noodles at the time of ordering. You can also order "kaedama" to add noodles if you want more.

Nagasaki: Chanpon

A noodle dish consisting of stir-fried vegetables and many kinds of seafood toppings, seasoned with chicken or pork bone broth, and cooked with special thick noodles. It is characterized by its high nutritional value due to the wide variety of ingredients. The soup made from pork or chicken bones is cloudy, and the noodles are thick and firm.

Okinawa: Okinawa soba 

Okinawan soba noodles are made without buckwheat flour, using only wheat flour, and kneaded with lye Water. The noodles are similar in appearance and taste to udon noodles. The soup is made mainly from pork and bonito stock with toppings of simmered pork belly, fish cake, and red ginger.

Which ramen caught your interest the most? There are many more local ramen throughout the country, so we hope you will explore them when you visit Japan!