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Setonaikai NP, Hiroshima
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Local legend says an immortal was so dazzled by the scenery that he became “drunk” with its beauty, lay down, and turned into the island. Sensuijima’s name means “island where immortals get intoxicated.”
Blue, red, yellow, white, and black appear in the shore’s Goshiki-iwa, or “Five-Color Rock.” The hues are natural: the exposed volcanic tuff’s minerals and different levels of iron oxidation create the colors.
Sensuijima’s own sea salt starts with seawater collected only at high tide, right in front of Goshiki-iwa. The island’s striking colored-rock shoreline is also the starting point for a local food product.
Tomo’s mayor imagined showing spring sea bream “dancing” against Sensuijima’s beauty. The first tourist taiami, a traditional net-fishing display, followed in 1923—turning a local fishery into a seaside show.
From Taichoro at Fukuzenji Temple on the mainland, Korean envoy Li Bang-eon praised the view of Sensuijima and Bentenjima with the calligraphy “Nitto Daiichikeisho”—“the finest scenic view in Japan.”
Sensuijima has about 200 sea caves, and some now sit above the present high-tide line. Their position records how the boundary between sea and land has changed since the caves formed.
Much of the island’s bedrock is rhyolitic tuff—ash and debris from explosive eruptions about 90 million years ago, when the Japanese archipelago was still part of the Eurasian continent.
A 15-meter-thick stack of shale and layered sandstones lies between volcanic formations on Sensuijima. This sediment, formed underwater, creates a striking geological “filling” in the island’s volcanic rock story.
Sensuijima became part of Tomo Park in 1873, in Japan’s first wave of government-designated parks. National scenic protection followed in 1925; at first it covered only part of the island, expanding to all of it in 1928.
Fukuyama’s city history records that the island was once called Mukoejima (向江島). Along with neighboring islands, it also helped shelter Tomonoura’s historic harbor, where ships waited for the tides.
