Hot springs

Geothermal water, warmed deep in the Earth.

Badab-e Surt

Mazandaran Province, northern Iran

A hillside staircase of terraced mineral pools in northern Iran, stained deep orange and red by iron-rich spring water and built up over thousands of years into stepped basins of travertine.

Hot spring Middle East

Hierve el Agua

San Lorenzo Albarradas, Oaxaca, Mexico

A pair of 'petrified waterfalls' in the mountains of Oaxaca — cliffs coated white by mineral springs — above natural infinity pools that hang over a vast valley.

Hot spring North America

Jigokudani & the Snow Monkeys

Yamanouchi, Nagano Prefecture, Japan

A steaming hot-spring valley in the mountains of Nagano — 'Hell Valley' — where wild Japanese macaques, the famous snow monkeys, come down through the winter forest to bathe in a natural thermal pool, the only place on Earth where monkeys soak in an onsen in the wild.

Hot spring East Asia

Ma'in Hot Springs

Between Madaba and the Dead Sea, Madaba Governorate, Jordan

A cluster of geothermal waterfalls tumbling down a desert canyon near the Dead Sea — hot, mineral-rich water heated deep underground and prized for its healing warmth since Roman times.

Hot spring Middle East

Pamukkale

Denizli Province, southwestern Turkey

The 'Cotton Castle' — a dazzling white hillside of terraced travertine pools formed by mineral-rich hot springs, where warm turquoise water spills over blindingly white stone terraces.

Hot spring Middle East

Rotorua Geothermal Field

Bay of Plenty, North Island, New Zealand

A landscape that steams, bubbles, and erupts — geysers, boiling mud pools, and mineral terraces in impossible colours, at the heart of Māori cultural life.

Hot spring Oceania

The Boiling Lake

Morne Trois Pitons National Park, Dominica

A flooded fumarole in the Dominican interior whose centre boils continuously — the second-largest hot lake on Earth, reached only by a six-hour walk across a valley of steam vents.

Hot spring Latin America