Kuchinoerabujima Island was added to Your Favorites!
Yakushima NP, Kagoshima
Claim this place to tell your story your way.
At 400 m offshore, an island fisherman and a Hiroshima University student caught a fish new to science. Named Erabu-sumiyaki, its Latin name, minetomai, honors local fisherman Takeshi Minetoma.
A 2011–2017 survey with islanders documented 686 fish species around Kuchinoerabu. Hiroshima University’s field guide pictured every one—a community-made portrait of these remarkably fish-rich waters.
The island’s menu draws from both slope and sea: residents gather wild bamboo shoots and other mountain greens, while offshore waters are a spiny-lobster ground that even Yakushima fishers visit.
Kuchinoerabu marks the world’s northern edge for flying foxes. After sunset, the rare, protected Erabu flying fox takes to the sky, its wings spanning about 90 cm as it searches for banyan and akou fruit.
The island’s gourd shape is a volcanic timeline: old Banyagamine forms the west, while volcanoes including Furudake and Shindake rise eastward. Eruptions have occurred at 3 island volcanoes within the past 10,000 years.
A freshwater crab described as a new species in 2011 occurs only on Kuchinoerabu, Kuroshima and the Uji Islands. Its restricted range helps researchers trace the islands’ geological connections.
For Kuchinoerabu’s full-moon festival, families contribute cogon grass for a handmade tug-of-war rope. The match begins after moonrise and is followed by sumo; once, each district made a distinctive rope head.
At the Kanmine Shrine festival, the Hinomoto dance sings of the Genpei War and the young Taira no Atsumori. Island youths revived it in 1981 alongside the stick dance, helping keep the tradition from disappearing.
On Mukuehama Beach beside the main port, 13 loggerhead turtle nesting sites were confirmed in 2012. Since 2013, island volunteers called Erabu Toshiyorigumi have monitored turtle landings, nests and hatchlings.
After Shindake’s explosive 2015 eruption, the whole island evacuated without a fatality—the first time Japan’s Volcano Alert Level 5 had been issued. Annual drills and the 2014 eruption had helped residents prepare.
After the evacuation, island children made a palm-sized disaster guide from a 32 cm square sheet folded into nine panels. It records the journey from eruption and evacuation to life away from the island and eventual return.
The early-20th-century sulfur boom pushed Kuchinoerabu’s population above 1,000; a census counted 103 residents in November 2020. At its busiest, this remote volcanic island had more than ten times that community.
At Nemachi, hot spring water bubbles up not only on shore but beneath the sea. The milky, sulfur-rich source is about 49.7°C—geothermal heat surfacing right where volcanic land meets ocean.
Despite its eruptions, Kuchinoerabu is called the “green volcano island”: evergreen broadleaf forest and Ryukyu bamboo cover much of it, while volcanic plants grow on the high slopes.
When rough weather stops the ferry, food deliveries may not arrive for 7–10 days. Many households keep several refrigerators and large freezers—on Kuchinoerabu, stocking up means planning around the sea.
