Mount Fuji

Where is Mount Fuji?

Mount Fuji is part of the Fuji Volcanic Zone.

You will find it in: Japan.

Summit: 35.361° N, 138.727° E

The story behind it

Mount Fuji is a stratovolcano built up over hundreds of thousands of years by countless layers of hardened lava and ash, giving it its famously smooth, symmetrical cone. It last erupted in 1707, an event known as the Hōei eruption, which rained ash all the way onto the streets of Edo, the city now called Tokyo, more than 100 kilometres away. For centuries the mountain has been considered sacred in both Shinto and Buddhist traditions, and pilgrims have climbed it in white robes since at least the 1600s; women were actually banned from climbing until 1872. Today over 200,000 people, many of them tourists rather than pilgrims, hike up during the short official climbing season each summer, often timing their ascent to reach the summit for sunrise, a moment called goraiko that is considered especially beautiful and lucky.

Find it on the globe

Mount Fuji is there as a small peak with its own shape — a horn, a ridge, a volcano — standing on the surface. From far away the planet is only a blue ball; detail arrives as you zoom in, and this one appears once you are close enough. Open it on the globe.

It sits at its real coordinates, not near them — the same numbers listed in the facts above. Switch off the layer for this kind of place and it disappears again; the buttons for that are down the right-hand edge.