47 Fun Facts About Mount Fuji

On which Japanese island does Mount Fuji stand?

Honshu. Fuji stands near the Pacific coast of Japan's largest island, above a collision zone where one tectonic plate dives beneath others and feeds the country's volcanoes.

Mount Fuji's 3,776 m summit is higher than which famous peak?

Mount Olympus, at 2,917 m, falls well short of Fuji, whose air near the top is thin enough that climbers who gain height too fast are hit by headaches, dizziness and nausea.

What type of volcano is Mount Fuji?

An active stratovolcano. Fuji's cone was piled up layer upon layer by repeated eruptions, and although it has been quiet for three centuries, geologists still class it as active.

Fuji's 1707 eruption darkened midday skies over which modern city?

Tokyo, then called Edo. The eruption was all ash and cinders, and the fall that dimmed the shogun's city also smothered farmland nearer the mountain, leaving villagers there to starve.

Japanese tradition says the luckiest first dream of the New Year features Mount Fuji, a hawk and which vegetable?

An eggplant. The old saying ranks the dreams: Fuji first, a hawk second, an eggplant third, and whoever sees the mountain in their sleep on the night of 1 January is promised a good year.

Although a volcano, Mount Fuji joined UNESCO's World Heritage List in 2013 as which kind of site?

Cultural. UNESCO honoured the mountain as a sacred place that has inspired artists and poets for centuries, so the listing covers pilgrim routes, lodging houses and lakes instead of its geology.

Mount Fuji is one of hundreds of volcanoes strung along which great belt?

The Ring of Fire. Most of the world's earthquakes strike along this horseshoe of colliding plates around the Pacific, and because an eruption would do so much damage, quiet Fuji is monitored 24 hours a day.

The 'san' in 'Fuji-san' sounds like the polite title for people but is really a reading of which word?

Yama, the word for mountain. Its character can also be read 'san', which has nothing to do with the '-san' added to people's names, so the foreigners' 'Mount Fujiyama' says mountain twice.

Which classic of Japanese literature links the name Fuji to the word for 'immortal'?

The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter ends with the emperor ordering the moon princess's elixir of immortality burned on the peak nearest heaven, and the story puns on 'fushi', immortal, to explain the mountain's name.

In 2024 a Japanese town hung a huge black screen to block a viral photo view of Fuji rising above what?

A convenience store. So many visitors crowded a pavement in Fujikawaguchiko to photograph the peak behind a Lawson shop that the town put up a 20-metre mesh barrier in May 2024.

In 1860 the first foreigner known to climb Mount Fuji was the top diplomat in Japan of which country?

Britain. Sir Rutherford Alcock, its first resident envoy, went up in eight hours and came down in three, and his book The Capital of the Tycoon gave Western readers their first widely read account of the peak.

Which US peak became Fuji's 'sister mountain' in 1936, nicknamed 'Tacoma-Fuji' by Japanese immigrants?

Mount St. Helens, before its 1980 eruption, was separately known as 'The Fuji of America'.

What tore apart BOAC Flight 911 in mid-air near Mount Fuji in 1966?

Mountain-wave turbulence. Winds tumbling off Fuji broke up the Boeing 707 minutes after take-off; the producers of the Bond film You Only Live Twice had given up their seats to watch a ninja display.

According to a Japanese saying, what sort of person climbs Mount Fuji twice?

A fool. The saying cuts both ways: anyone who never climbs Fuji is a fool, and so is anyone who goes back and climbs it a second time.

Which car brand says its logo shows a road and Mount Fuji?

Infiniti. Nissan says the badge of its luxury marque can be read two ways, as a road running to the horizon and as the outline of Fuji, a nod to the company's Japanese roots.

The radar dome that crowned Mount Fuji's summit from 1964 was built to give early warning of what?

Typhoons. After a 1959 storm left some 5,000 people dead or missing, Japan put the world's highest weather radar on the summit, where it tracked typhoons 800 km out to sea until satellites took over in 1999.

Mount Fuji straddles the boundary of which two prefectures?

Shizuoka and Yamanashi. Three of the four main climbing trails start on the Shizuoka side, yet the busiest of them all begins in Yamanashi.

The Fuji Five Lakes at the mountain's northern foot formed when what dammed the local rivers?

Lava flows. Lava also poured into an enormous lake that once filled the area and broke it up, and the three lakes left behind still rise and fall together, a sign that they remain linked underground.

Which hot-spring resort town, once a post station on the Tōkaidō road, looks out on Mount Fuji across Lake Ashi?

Hakone. The town sits inside the crater of an old volcano of its own, and the sight of Fuji from its baths and lake boats has made it the classic side trip for visitors to the mountain.

In 2024, Mount Fuji's first snowcap of the season made headlines for being what?

The latest on record. Snow usually caps the summit at the start of October, but in 2024 the peak stayed bare into November, the longest wait since observations began in 1894.

Mount Fuji sits at a triple junction of which three tectonic plates?

Eurasian, North American and Philippine Sea plates all meet beneath Fuji, while a fourth, the Pacific Plate, slides under them and is thought to supply the volcano's magma.

Who owns the summit of Mount Fuji from the eighth station upward?

A Shinto shrine. Fujisan Hongū Sengen Taisha was given the land above the eighth station in the days of the shoguns, and after a 17-year lawsuit Japan's Supreme Court confirmed its ownership in 1974.

What colour were the robes traditionally worn by pilgrims climbing Mount Fuji?

White. For centuries the ascent was an act of worship, and pilgrims dressed in white robes as a sign of ritual purity; an old devotional painting shows a long line of them winding up the slopes.

Fuji Speedway, in the foothills of Mount Fuji, staged which championship's first race in Japan in 1976?

Formula One. The rain-soaked finale at Fuji settled the 1976 title: Niki Lauda pulled out because of the conditions, and James Hunt's third place made him world champion by a single point.

Mount Fuji's last eruption, in 1707, burst out from which part of the volcano instead of the summit?

Its southeastern flank. The blast tore open new vents and a huge crater halfway down the mountain and raised a second, smaller peak beside it, named Mount Hōei after the era in which it appeared.

Mount Fuji's last eruption, in 1707, came 49 days after which disaster struck Japan?

An earthquake. The 1707 Hōei quake, at magnitude 8.4 or more one of the strongest ever to hit Japan, is thought to have squeezed the magma chambers under Fuji until they gave way seven weeks later.

Since 2024, a gate on Fuji's busiest trail has aimed to stop 'bullet climbing', which means what?

Climbing all night without rest. Hikers who set off in the evening and push for the top without a hut stay are more likely to fall ill or get hurt, so only those holding a hut booking may pass the gate after dark.

Which forest at Mount Fuji's northwest foot is nicknamed the Sea of Trees?

Aokigahara. The forest is only about 1,200 years old, and by one account it earned its nickname because, seen from the slopes above, its canopy ripples in the wind like waves on the sea.

Why can compass needles swing oddly on the floor of the 'Sea of Trees' forest below Mount Fuji?

Magnetic iron in the rock. The volcanic ground can tug a needle resting on it, but a compass held at chest height works normally, and Japan's army trains its rangers to find their way through the forest.

In which season is Mount Fuji officially open to climbers?

Summer. Only from early July to early September is the mountain usually free of snow, with the huts open; for the rest of the year the trails above the fifth stations are shut and climbing them is banned.

Most Mount Fuji climbers time their ascent to witness goraikō, which is what?

Sunrise from the summit. The word means 'arrival of light', and most climbers walk through the night, or leave a mountain hut well before dawn, to be standing at the top when the sun comes up.

What reaches as far as Mount Fuji's fifth stations, where most climbers start?

Paved roads. Each trail counts ten stations from the foot of the mountain to the summit, and although the old paths from the bottom are still open, the roads let most climbers skip the lower half.

Which trail up the north side of Mount Fuji is the most popular of the four main routes?

Yoshida. About six in ten climbers take this trail with its long string of mountain huts, so at the busiest times walkers end up standing in queues near the top.

What opens on Mount Fuji's summit in the climbing season as the highest of its kind in Japan?

A post office. It has opened for the climbing season since 1906, and climbers use it to send postcards stamped with a Fuji-shaped postmark and to buy a certificate proving they reached the top.

Why is camping illegal above the fifth station on Mount Fuji?

It lies in a national park. Tents and campfires are banned on Fuji's protected slopes, so climbers who want to sleep on the way up have to book a bunk in one of the mountain huts.

What did Mount Fuji's busiest trail first require of hikers in 2024?

Pay an entry fee. The 2,000-yen charge arrived with a gate and a limit of 4,000 hikers a day to ease the crowds, and a year later it was doubled and applied to all four trails.

Konohanasakuya-hime, the goddess of Mount Fuji, has which flower as her symbol?

Cherry blossom. The cherry is her sacred tree, and she has long been worshipped in the hope that she will keep the volcano from erupting.

Shugendō, whose mountain ascetics trained on Fuji, blends Japan's native mountain worship with which religion?

Buddhism. Shugendō's wandering ascetics sought spiritual power through hardship on sacred peaks, and by the 12th century one monk had built a temple at the top of Fuji.

Which ukiyo-e artist created the woodblock print series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji?

Hokusai. The first prints sold so well that his publisher brought out ten more, which is why the 'Thirty-six Views' in fact number forty-six.

In The Great Wave off Kanagawa, Mount Fuji appears as what?

A small, distant peak. The wave towers over the snow-capped mountain, yet Fuji is the real subject: the print belongs to a series called Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji.

Which pigment gives the prints of the Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji their deep colour?

Prussian blue. Japanese printmakers had no long-lasting blue until this synthetic pigment arrived from Europe, and the series used it so boldly that it helped start a fashion for prints in shades of blue.

Which New Zealand mountain has stood in for Mount Fuji on screen because of its resemblance?

Taranaki. The 2003 film The Last Samurai, set in Japan, was shot largely around the New Zealand volcano, chosen because its lone cone could pass for Fuji on screen.

Which shōgun held yabusame mounted-archery contests at the foot of Fuji in the early Kamakura period?

Minamoto no Yoritomo. The founder of the Kamakura shogunate also staged a month-long hunt at Fuji's foot in 1193, remembered because the Soga brothers used it to avenge their father's killing.

Mount Fuji's summit was once held so sacred that who was forbidden to climb it until the Meiji era?

Women. The ban ended with a government order of 1872, but Tatsu Takayama had already beaten it forty years earlier, reaching the top with a party of male pilgrims while dressed as a man.

'Fugaku', an old poetic name for Mount Fuji, was given in 2019 to which new Japanese machine?

A supercomputer. RIKEN chose the mountain's name to stand for the machine's power and the wide horizon it would open to its users, and in 2020 Fugaku was ranked the fastest computer in the world.

The celebrated woodblock print 'Fine Wind, Clear Morning' is better known by which nickname?

Red Fuji. On clear early-autumn mornings the rising sun can turn the mountain red, and later printings of the picture used such a strong red pigment on its slopes that the nickname stuck.

After Mount Fuji, the next-highest peaks in the country all rise in which group of mountain ranges?

The Japanese Alps. Their tallest summit, Kita-dake, stops almost 600 m short of Fuji at 3,193 m, and the ranges owe their European name to an English archaeologist, William Gowland, who coined it in the 19th century.