Shiraito Falls, Natural monument in Fujinomiya, Japan

Shiraito Falls is a national natural monument where water flows from Mount Fuji's underground springs for approximately 20 meters down a rock face. The water spreads across the cliff in numerous thin streams, creating delicate white threads that hang like curtains.

Shiraito Falls was already noted as a scenic spot in the 16th-century chronicle Shinchō Kōki, and in the Edo period it became a pilgrimage site for Fuji-kō devotees, who left a memorial stone to Shokyo Shinroku near the basin. In 1936 the falls were designated a National Place of Scenic Beauty and Natural Monument, and in 2013 they were inscribed as part of the UNESCO World Heritage site Fujisan, sacred place and source of artistic inspiration.

The falls are a sacred site of the Fuji cult, and a memorial stone to the ascetic Shokyo Shinroku, erected in the Tenpo era, still stands by the basin. Above the falls, the spring called Obito Water is said to have been used by Minamoto no Yoritomo to tidy his hair. The painter Ike Taiga depicted the falls together with Mount Fuji.

The falls stand about a five-minute walk from Otodome Falls, and the designated property takes in the basin and surrounding ground. Buses from Fujinomiya Station on the Minobu Line stop at the Shiraito Falls information office in roughly 30 minutes. The basin was closed after typhoon damage in 2011 and reopened that November; a new viewing bridge opened in December 2013.

The water emerges directly from Mount Fuji's underground channels before flowing down the cliff face. This direct connection to the mountain's interior water system makes visitors experience pure volcanic spring water in its natural state.