Mount Fuji

Mount Fuji, a dormant volcano, is the highest mountain in Japan.

Fuji is 3,776m (12,388ft) high.

From its crater, which measures almost 700m (2,297ft) across, it slopes down at an angle of 45 degrees and gradually levels out before reaching the plain.

Its base, 40km (25mi) in diameter and 125km (78mi) in circumference, is almost perfectly circular.

For most of the year, the peak of the mountain is covered in snow, while its lower slopes are covered in lush vegetation or moorland.

Mount Fuji's perfect symmetry has long been considered the ultimate Japanese symbol of beauty.

Eruptions

Mount Fuji first erupted around 300,000 years ago from below a wide plain. Fuji's present shape is the result of outpourings from several cones, which built up alternate layers of solidified lava and a conglomerate composed of cinder, ash and lava.

These layers represent the sequence in which the volcano, which geologists call a stratovolcano, erupts: huge volumes of molten lava spread out evenly over the mountain slopes. Violent explosions follow, in which dense clouds of cinder, ash and lava pellets are ejected high into the air.

Buddhist teachings say that Fuji was created when a massive earthquake struck the land late one night in 286 BC. The same seismic upheavals opened up the earth and formed Lake Biwa, Japan's largest freshwater lake, 280km (175mi) to the west.

The first recorded eruption of Mount Fuji took place in AD 800. Since then, it has erupted ten more times. Outpourings from each eruption, the outpourings concealed the remnants of two ancient craters, known as Old Fuji and Komitake.

Fuji's last eruption took place in 1707. Clouds of ash and cinder were carried as far as Tokyo, 100km (62mi) to the east. Streets in Tokyo were blocked and some of the city's buildings were damaged.