Mount Aso — volcano
Image by RealSprout from Pixabay

Mount Aso

  • 1 min read
  • 32.885° N 131.104° E

Interesting facts

  • The largest of Aso's caldera eruptions, about 90,000 years ago, threw out more than 600 cubic kilometres of material, roughly the volume of Mount Fuji.
  • Ash from that eruption has been found more than 15 centimetres thick on Hokkaido, about 1,500 kilometres to the north.
  • Calderas this size are not rare, but very few have floors stable enough to hold farmland, highways and railways as Aso's does.
  • Lakes once filled the valleys inside the caldera; their dried beds are now known as Old Aso Lake, Kugino Lake and Aso Valley Lake.
  • The active cone, Nakadake, has seven craters lined up roughly from north to south, and more than 17 volcanic cones stand within the caldera.
  • Welded tuff from Aso's ancient eruptions was used for about 320 arched stone bridges across Kumamoto Prefecture, including the Tsūjun Bridge.
  • Ash from Aso, carried down the Chikugo River which rises on the volcano, helps sustain the vast tidal flats of the Ariake Sea.
  • In the 1956 monster film Rodan, the giant flying creature and its mate perish when Aso erupts.
  • Aso served as the model for Mt. Chimney, a volcano in the Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire video games.
  • The seasonal flowering of Rhododendron kiusianum, a dwarf azalea native to Kyushu, on the slopes of Takadake is one of the protected sights of the national park.

Why it is worth it

Mount Aso, in the heart of Kyushu, is a volcano on a vast scale: a caldera about 25 km from north to south and 18 km from east to west, with a rim some 120 km around, so large that whole towns and farmland lie inside it. From the middle of this basin rise the central cones known as the Five Mountains of Aso — Neko, Taka, Naka, Eboshi and Kishima — the highest of which, Takadake, reaches 1,592 metres.

The caldera was created by four huge eruptions between about 300,000 and 90,000 years ago, which emptied the magma chamber beneath and let the ground collapse. Today Nakadake is the active centre. Only its northernmost crater has been active for the last seventy years or so; it steams continuously and has erupted repeatedly, including in 1979, 1989–91, 2015, 2016 and on 20 October 2021.

Those grasslands are one of the defining sights of Aso. Kusasenrigahama, a broad grassy plain at the foot of the central cones, is known for horse riding and is a starting point for many walking trails. The caldera floor is home to the city of Aso and the villages of Takamori and Minamiaso. The area became part of Aso National Park in 1934. A ropeway to the crater, opened in 1958, ran for the last time in 2014 and has since been dismantled.

Getting there

The town of Aso lies inside the caldera, about 6 km from the central cones; the JR Hōhi Main Line between Kumamoto and Ōita crosses the caldera and stops at Aso Station. The nearest airport is Kumamoto Airport (KMJ), about 24 km away in a straight line.

Plan your visit

We have no confirmed visit data yet. Once it is confirmed, this block also carries the date it was checked.

Nearby places

On these lists

The Most Beautiful Places in Japan 122The Most Beautiful Natural Wonders in Japan 9The Most Beautiful Volcanoes 61The Most Beautiful Natural Wonders 580

From the encyclopaedia

Mount Aso or Aso Volcano is the second largest active volcano in Japan after Mount Fuji, and among the largest in the world. Common use relates often only to the somma volcano in the centre of Aso Caldera. It stands in Aso Kujū National Park in Kumamoto Prefecture, on the island of Kyushu. Its tallest peak, Takadake, is 1,592 meters (5,223 ft) above sea level. Mount Aso is in a fairly large caldera with a circumference of around 120 km (75 mi), although sources vary on the exact distance. It is one of the 100 Famous Japanese Mountains.

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32.88500, 131.10417per Wikidata