A traveller's map of Japan's regional ramen

Ask someone in Japan what ramen tastes like, and there's a good chance the answer will start with where they grew up. A bowl in Hokkaido can have almost nothing in common with one in Kyushu: a different seasoning, a different stock, a different noodle, even a different idea of what time of day ramen is for. That variety is the best reason I know to travel the country with a spoon in hand.

What gotōchi ramen means

Gotōchi (ご当地) means something like "local" or "of this particular place", and gotōchi ramen are the regional styles that towns and cities claim as their own. Some grew out of local ingredients, some out of the climate, and some out of the needs of the people who first ate them, from labourers to students. Many have been around for generations. Others were named and celebrated more recently, as regional pride and food travel grew.

A helpful way to read any bowl is to look at three things: the tare (タレ, the seasoning base, such as salt, soy or miso), the stock, and the noodles. Our guide to the four ramen flavours explains the seasonings, and our anatomy of a bowl covers the rest. Keep those three in mind and you'll see them mix and match across the map below.

Hokkaido: three cities, three seasonings

Japan's northern island has three famous styles, and they divide neatly by seasoning.

Asahikawa shoyu

In one of Japan's coldest cities, soy-seasoned ramen comes on a "double soup" of pork or chicken plus seafood, under a layer of lard that keeps it hot to the last sip. The noodles are firm and low in water. Read more on Asahikawa shoyu.

Sapporo miso

Hokkaido's capital is where miso ramen took off in the decades after the Second World War. Expect a rich, warming miso broth, thick curly yellow noodles and, often, vegetables tossed in a hot wok before they go into the bowl. Read more on Sapporo miso.

Hakodate shio

At the southern tip of the island, the old port of Hakodate prefers clear, light ramen seasoned with salt. A gentle chicken or pork stock, often with kombu, and straight noodles make it the most delicate of the three. Read more on Hakodate shio.

Down Honshu and across to Shikoku

Kitakata

In this small city in Fukushima Prefecture, ramen is breakfast as well as lunch and dinner, a habit known as asa-ra (朝ラー), or morning ramen. The bowl is a clear soy broth with wide, flat, wavy noodles, and Kitakata is often named alongside Sapporo and Hakata as one of Japan's three great ramen towns. Read more on Kitakata morning ramen.

Tokyo shoyu

The capital's classic is chuka soba (中華そば): a clear soy broth, often built on chicken, with thin curly noodles, chashu, bamboo shoots and perhaps a swirl of fish cake. It's the bowl many people picture when they first hear the word ramen. Read more on Tokyo shoyu.

Yokohama iekei

Iekei (家系) ramen traces back to Yoshimuraya in Yokohama in the 1970s. It's a rich pork-and-chicken bone broth seasoned with soy, served with thick noodles, spinach and sheets of nori, and you can usually choose the noodle firmness, the strength of the flavour and the amount of oil. Read more on iekei.

Toyama Black

Over on the Sea of Japan coast, Toyama serves soy broth so dark it looks almost black, with a heavy hand of coarse black pepper. The story goes that it began after the war as a salty bowl for labourers to eat with rice. Read more on Toyama Black.

Wakayama

South of Osaka, Wakayama's ramen is usually a rich broth of soy and pork bone that many locals still call chuka soba. Shops often set out hayazushi (早寿司), mackerel pressed sushi, for customers to help themselves while they wait. Read more on Wakayama ramen.

Onomichi

In this Seto Inland Sea port in Hiroshima Prefecture, soy broth is built on chicken and small fish, served with flat noodles and scattered with little pieces of pork back fat that melt slowly into the soup. Read more on Onomichi ramen.

Tokushima

Across the water on Shikoku, Tokushima ramen is often sorted by colour, with the dark brown style the best known. Instead of chashu it's usually topped with sweet, savoury simmered pork belly, often with a raw egg, and plenty of people eat it with rice. Read more on Tokushima ramen.

Kyushu and the far south

Hakata and Kurume

Fukuoka Prefecture is the heartland of tonkotsu (豚骨), the creamy, cloudy pork-bone broth. Kurume is often credited as its birthplace, while Hakata made famous its very thin noodles, the choice of firmness and the kaedama (替え玉), an extra serving of noodles ordered for the broth you have left. Read more on Hakata tonkotsu.

Kumamoto

Further south, Kumamoto often blends its tonkotsu with chicken for a gentler broth, then adds fried garlic chips and mayu (マー油), a black garlic oil, over medium-thick, firm noodles. Read more on Kumamoto ramen.

Okinawa soba

At the end of the line, Okinawa's soba isn't buckwheat at all but thick wheat noodles in a broth of pork bones and katsuobushi, topped with soft spare ribs or pork belly. It's a fitting finale, and proof that the word on the sign is only the start of the story. Read more on Okinawa soba.

Planning a ramen trip

A few thoughts if you're tempted to build a journey around bowls.

• Pick a corridor, not the whole country. Hokkaido's three styles, or Kyushu's tonkotsu cities, make a satisfying trip on their own. Trying to fit all thirteen into one holiday is more endurance test than pleasure.
• Eat at off-peak times. Popular shops can draw long queues at lunch. Mid-afternoon or early evening is often calmer.
• One bowl, then walk. Ramen is filling. A walk between bowls makes the next one taste better, and you get to see the town as well.
• Learn the ticket machine. Many shops take orders through a vending machine by the door, and our guide to ramen ticket machines takes the mystery out of it.
• Use the map. Our map lets you search by city or style, so you can see what's near your hotel before you set out.
• Short on time? The Shin-Yokohama Ramen Museum gathers shops serving regional styles under one roof, a good way to taste a few before you decide where to go.

I think the real gift of gotōchi ramen is that it makes you pay attention to place. A bowl in Asahikawa tells you about winter. A bowl in Toyama tells you about hard work. A bowl in Okinawa tells you about pork and the sea. Follow the noodles from north to south and you end up with a portrait of Japan that no guidebook quite manages.