Taal Volcano
Interesting facts
- Vulcan Point is among the largest third-order islands in the world: an island in a lake on an island in a lake on an island.
- During the January 2020 eruption the main crater lake vanished entirely, and it had refilled by March of the same year.
- The 2020 eruption threw up ash clouds laced with volcanic lightning and dusted Metro Manila and much of central Luzon.
- The 1911 eruption was heard across an area more than 600 miles wide, and Volcano Island sank by one to three metres.
- In 1965 cold base surges raced several kilometres across the lake surface, killing about a hundred people.
- Despite its violent record, the summit of the volcano rises only about 311 metres above sea level.
- The volcano has had 39 confirmed historical eruptions since written records began in 1572.
- Of the island's 47 cones and craters, 26 are tuff cones, five are cinder cones and four are maars.
- In the 1800s the volcano went by names such as Pulo and Bombon; Taal comes from a local word for true or pure.
Why it is worth it
Taal Volcano is a landscape of nested craters: a huge caldera flooded by Taal Lake, an island volcano rising from the lake, and on that island a crater lake with a small rocky islet of its own, Vulcan Point. The caldera, 25 to 30 km across, lies in Batangas about 50 km south of Manila and was blown out by a series of enormous prehistoric eruptions whose ash and pumice blanket southern Luzon as far as the capital. Volcano Island, about 5 km across, is a cluster of 47 overlapping cones and craters built up since then, and it is one of the most active volcanic centres in the Philippines.
Its written history begins in 1572, the year Augustinian friars founded the town of Taal on the lakeshore, and it is a violent one. The eruption of 1754, the greatest on record, lasted from May to December; it buried old Taal and forced the towns of Tanauan, Lipa and Sala to move, and it blocked the lake's outlet so that the water level rose. Cut off from the sea, some fish adapted to fresh water, among them the sardine known locally as tawilis. In January 1911 another eruption killed over a thousand people and wiped out every village on the island; afterwards the old crater floor with its green, yellow and red pools was replaced by a single crater lake. Because of this record Taal was named a Decade Volcano for special study, and the whole island is a permanent danger zone where settlement is prohibited.
The classic view is from Tagaytay Ridge on the northern rim of the caldera. From there Volcano Island lies spread out in the lake below, with the cinder cone of Binintiang Malaki, the Giant Leg, standing out on its shore. Around the caldera, the cones of Batulao, Macolod and Sungay are remnants of the older volcano that preceded it. The site was declared a National Geological Monument in 1998 and became a national park in 2018.
Getting there
The lakeshore town of Talisay is about 10 km from the volcano, and Tagaytay on the caldera rim overlooks it from the north. Ninoy Aquino International Airport (MNL) in Manila is about 55 km away.
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
Taal Volcano, also known as Taal Caldera, is a large caldera filled by Taal Lake in the Philippines. Located in the province of Batangas about 50 kilometers (31 mi) south of Manila, the volcano is the second most active volcano in the country, with 39 confirmed historical eruptions, concentrated on Volcano Island, near the middle of Taal Lake. The caldera was formed by prehistoric eruptions between less than 670,000 and less than 6,000 years ago. The cones Batulao, Macolod, and Sungay are remnants of the early pre-caldera Taal system, with Batulao being the earliest known cone.
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