Mount Fuji Trivia
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47 free Mount Fuji trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
This Mount Fuji trivia quiz covers Japan's sacred mountain from every side: geology, history, climbing, art and myth. The easy questions are the ones any traveller should manage: which island it stands on, roughly how tall it is, whether it is still active, and which artist made it world-famous in woodblock prints. From there it digs into the details: the three tectonic plates that meet beneath it, the four phases of eruption that built the cone, the ash that fell on Edo in 1707, the first woman to reach the summit and the edict that finally allowed women up, the British diplomat who made the first foreign ascent, the airliner torn apart by turbulence in its lee, the weather station that closed after 72 years, the fifth stations and the tenth, the goraiko sunrise, the goddess Konohanasakuya-hime, the Fuji-ko cult, the compass myth of Aokigahara and the 2024 fee to climb the Yoshida trail. Every answer was checked against encyclopaedia entries on Mount Fuji, the Hōei eruption, Aokigahara, the Fuji Five Lakes and Hokusai's Thirty-six Views before publishing, and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. If you enjoy this one, try our Japan, volcanoes and Tokyo quizzes next.
30 of 47 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01On which Japanese island does Mount Fuji stand?
Honshu
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.
Q 02Mount Fuji's 3,776 m summit is higher than which famous peak?
Mount Olympus
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.
Q 03What type of volcano is Mount Fuji?
An active stratovolcano
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.
Q 04Fuji's 1707 eruption darkened midday skies over which modern city?
Tokyo
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.
Q 05Japanese tradition says the luckiest first dream of the New Year features Mount Fuji, a hawk and which vegetable?
An eggplant
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.
Q 06Although a volcano, Mount Fuji joined UNESCO's World Heritage List in 2013 as which kind of site?
Cultural
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.
Q 07Mount Fuji is one of hundreds of volcanoes strung along which great belt?
The Ring of Fire
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.
Q 08The 'san' in 'Fuji-san' sounds like the polite title for people but is really a reading of which word?
Yama
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.
Q 09Which classic of Japanese literature links the name Fuji to the word for 'immortal'?
The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter
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.
Q 10In 2024 a Japanese town hung a huge black screen to block a viral photo view of Fuji rising above what?
A convenience store
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.
Q 11In 1860 the first foreigner known to climb Mount Fuji was the top diplomat in Japan of which country?
Britain
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.
Q 12Which US peak became Fuji's 'sister mountain' in 1936, nicknamed 'Tacoma-Fuji' by Japanese immigrants?
Mount Rainier
Mount St. Helens, before its 1980 eruption, was separately known as 'The Fuji of America'.
Q 13What tore apart BOAC Flight 911 in mid-air near Mount Fuji in 1966?
Mountain-wave turbulence
Q 21Mount Fuji sits at a triple junction of which three tectonic plates?
Eurasian, North American and Philippine Sea
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.
Q 22Who owns the summit of Mount Fuji from the eighth station upward?
A Shinto shrine
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.
Q 23What colour were the robes traditionally worn by pilgrims climbing Mount Fuji?
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.
Q 14According to a Japanese saying, what sort of person climbs Mount Fuji twice?
A fool
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.
Q 15Which car brand says its logo shows a road and Mount Fuji?
Infiniti
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.
Q 16The radar dome that crowned Mount Fuji's summit from 1964 was built to give early warning of what?
Typhoons
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.
Q 17Mount Fuji straddles the boundary of which two prefectures?
Shizuoka and Yamanashi
Shizuoka and Yamanashi. Three of the four main climbing trails start on the Shizuoka side, yet the busiest of them all begins in Yamanashi.
Q 18The Fuji Five Lakes at the mountain's northern foot formed when what dammed the local rivers?
Lava flows
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.
Q 19Which hot-spring resort town, once a post station on the Tōkaidō road, looks out on Mount Fuji across Lake Ashi?
Hakone
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.
Q 20In 2024, Mount Fuji's first snowcap of the season made headlines for being what?
The latest on record
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.
White
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.
Q 24Fuji Speedway, in the foothills of Mount Fuji, staged which championship's first race in Japan in 1976?
Formula One
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.
Q 25Mount Fuji's last eruption, in 1707, burst out from which part of the volcano instead of the summit?
Its southeastern flank
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.
Q 26Mount Fuji's last eruption, in 1707, came 49 days after which disaster struck Japan?
An earthquake
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.
Q 27Since 2024, a gate on Fuji's busiest trail has aimed to stop 'bullet climbing', which means what?
Climbing all night without rest
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.
Q 28Which forest at Mount Fuji's northwest foot is nicknamed the Sea of Trees?
Aokigahara
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.
Q 29Why can compass needles swing oddly on the floor of the 'Sea of Trees' forest below Mount Fuji?
Magnetic iron in the rock
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.
Q 30In which season is Mount Fuji officially open to climbers?
Summer
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.