Old Amagi Tunnel was added to Your Favorites!
Fuji-Hakone-Izu NP, Shizuoka
Claim this place to tell your story your way.
Japan’s longest surviving stone road tunnel runs 445.5 m through Amagi Pass, at about 710 m elevation. Completed in 1904 and opened in 1905, it is officially named Amagisan Zuido.
The tunnel is lined with cut stone all the way through, not just framed by a stone entrance. Its side walls have rugged, projecting faces, while the arch stones were bush-hammered—a careful change in finish between the two parts.
The tunnel’s stone came from Yoshida, in what is now Izunokuni City. This landmark crossing through Amagi was built with stone quarried on the Izu Peninsula itself.
Before this tunnel opened, the established Amagi crossing was via Nibonsugi Pass, used mainly by people traveling on foot. Townsend Harris, the U.S. consul traveling toward Edo in the final years of the shogunate, crossed the older route.
Buses began using the Amagi route in 1916, just 11 years after the tunnel opened. Japan’s Ministry of Land says the service helped increase the movement of people and goods across Izu.
The tunnel appears in Kawabata Yasunari’s *The Izu Dancer*, Inoue Yasushi’s *Shirobamba*, and Matsumoto Seicho’s *Amagi-goe*. Three very different works of modern Japanese literature share this mountain crossing.
On June 15, 2001, Amagisan Zuido became Japan’s first road tunnel designated a National Important Cultural Property—a distinction recognizing not just its age, but the skill preserved in its stone construction.
