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Fuji-Hakone-Izu NP, Tokyo
Claim this place to tell your story your way.
About 2,500 years ago, magma-water explosions carved the bowl that became Tairoike. It is the Izu Islands’ largest freshwater lake—and, as a volcanic lake, their only one.
Tairomo, an aquatic plant discovered at Tairoike in 1937, is a Miyake Village natural monument. Ash from the 1983 eruption covered the lakebed, and the plant is now at risk of extinction.
Beside Tairoike, Maigo-jii was a landmark for people gathering chinquapin nuts in the dense forest—an island food also shipped to Edo. Its name means “Lost-child tree,” because it helped people find their way home.
In May 1937, Dazai Osamu was photographed resting by Tairoike. He later referred to that very image in his 1942 story “A Little Album,” where the narrator shows the photograph to visitors.
May and June bring a chorus so dense that the local bird center says Tairoike’s trail is nicknamed “Japan’s No. 1 birdsong path.” Listen for the endangered Akakokko and migratory Iijima’s leaf warbler.
Tairoike has no surface stream feeding or draining it: a 1978 study found that its water moves through groundwater. The research also examined how pumping for the island’s water supply could lower the lake level.
Near the pond, Miyake Village opened the Akakokko Nature Center in 1993 to share the island’s nature. The 2000 volcanic crisis interrupted its work; after the island evacuation, it reopened in July 2005.
