The Guardian

Against the grain: anger grows at spike in 'sand graffiti' by tourists in Japan

Tottori prefecture to install more foreign-language signs urging visitors not to vandalise dunes
More than 3,300 incidents of ‘sand graffiti’ have occurred in the Japanese tourist hotspot in the last decade. Photograph: Alamy

Local authorities in Japan have drawn a line in the sand amid anger over a rise in graffiti by foreign tourists disfiguring its pristine coastal dunes.

Tottori, a prefecture (county) on the Japan Sea coast, banned the defacement of its sand

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