Japan's Volcanoes

About this book

Japan is a volcano country — and this is its volcano book.

Japan's Volcanoes covers 200 volcanic places in one traveller's format: what the volcano is, what it has done, how to visit and what it tastes like, and the specific safety note that belongs to that place. Fuji and Sakurajima, Aso's inhabited caldera and Beppu's steaming streets. Usu, the best-documented volcano in Japan, and Showa Shinzan, the mountain that grew in a wheat field while a postmaster drew it. The Izu islands, one volcano and one village at a time, down the arc to Aogashima's double caldera, the Tokara chain, and Suwanosejima, which erupts in its village's front garden.

It is honest where other books go vague — and where volcanoes demand it. Crater access is never promised: every entry ends with the same instruction to check the current JMA volcanic alert level (five levels) and local regulations, the practical chapters teach you how to read those levels, and the places that cannot be visited — Nishinoshima, Torishima, Ioto — say so in their first lines and earn their place by teaching. Safety is not a disclaimer in this book; it is part of the format, in all 200 entries.

Come and read the country the volcanoes built.