Kagoshima's symbolic Sakurajima is a volcanic island, which rises from the sea only 4km from South Kyushu's hub city, Kagoshima.
It is one of the world's great active volcanoes at 1,117 meters tall and 50km around.
The volcano, which formed on the south rim of the Aira Caldera, is a stratovolcano consisting of two peaks, the North Peak and the South Peak, and has repeating major eruptions. During of them, a major eruption in 1914, lava filled a 400-meter wide strait causing the island to connect with Osumi Peninsula on the opposite shore. Approximately 10 billion tons of lava, a volume without parallel in the world, flowed out.
There is an observatory with a view of the summit midway up the mountain where you can feel the power of the active volcano spewing smoke up close.
Sakurajima
