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Fuji-Hakone-Izu NP, Tokyo
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During the 1983 eruption, scoria piled up into Nippana Shinzan in a single night. Waves have since cut into its seaside face, exposing striking red-and-black volcanic layers.
After residents returned from the 2000 evacuation, Miyake makers turned island-caught horse mackerel and flying fish into ashitaba-smoked specialties, using a slab of eruption lava as the smoker’s base.
The 2000 eruption’s explosions quieted, but Oyama kept releasing 20,000–50,000 tonnes of sulfur dioxide daily in September and October. The islandwide evacuation lasted until February 1, 2005—4 years and 5 months.
The endangered Akakokko is native to the Izu and Tokara islands. After volcanic damage to its forest habitat, Miyakejima residents joined the Wild Bird Society in counting the birds along 25 island-wide routes.
Every 2 years, the Toga Shrine festival’s mikoshi travels through all 5 of Miyakejima’s districts, staying overnight at each district shrine. The circuit takes 6 days and is designated Tokyo intangible folk culture.
Miyake taiko began as a drum escorting the mikoshi at Kamitsuki’s Gozu Tenno Festival. Its distinctive low, two-player stance was later carried around the world by the taiko group Kodo.
By mid-August 2000, collapse at Oyama had carved a caldera 1.5 km across and 450 m deep. Its size and position closely matched a caldera formed about 2,500 years earlier.
On October 3, 1983, a flank fissure sent lava into Ako, burying or burning more than 400 homes. The Japan Meteorological Agency records no human casualties in that eruption.
About 10 km west of Miyakejima, uninhabited Ohnokara-jima—also called Sanbongaku—is a breeding site for the endangered Japanese murrelet. The nesting rocks are a separate offshore island group, not the main island.
On January 2, Miyakejima’s Ship Blessing festival asks the sea deity for a safe, bountiful fishing year. Boat owners and crews share sake aboard their vessels, then toss mandarins to the crowd in the harbor.
Maigojii means “lost-person shi oak.” In the island’s dense woods, acorn gatherers who lost their way used this revered tree as a landmark to find the way out; its acorns were also food and a product sent to Edo.
Painter Hanabusa Itchō spent nearly 12 years in exile on Miyakejima, from age 47 to 58. He made works for both Edo patrons and local islanders; after his return, he adopted the name “Ei Itchō.”
In Miyakejima’s origin myth, a young woman fleeing a dragon becomes a dove, flies to Mount Fuji, then reaches Oyama. Island gods help defeat the dragon, and the story tells how divine families founded settlements.
The 2000 evacuation interrupted 2 shrine ritual traditions. In 2024, performers revived a shortened, 20-minute version of the Great Kagura; in 2025, part of the Kannabe dance was performed again as restoration continued.
Two or three days before the 1940 eruption, ama divers reportedly heard rumbling beneath Akabakkyo Bay. Steam, rising ground heat and other rumblings had also been noticed before the vent opened on the inhabited slope.
After Miyakejima’s 1962 eruption, the Izu settlement recorded more than 2,000 felt earthquakes on August 30. In the following weeks, more than a thousand schoolchildren and others were evacuated, mainly to Tateyama.
Lake Tairoike was known for a locally unique aquatic plant called tairomo, reported in 1937. Heavy ash from the October 1983 eruption damaged the lake habitat and left the plant at risk.
Even Miyakejima’s name has no single agreed origin. The village lists 3 theories: “three houses,” “island of shrines,” and “burnt island,” a nod to its frequent eruptions.
