Sakurajima (Japanese: 桜島, lit. 'Cherry Blossom Island') is an active stratovolcano, formerly an island and now a peninsula, in Kagoshima Prefecture in Kyushu, Japan. It is the most active volcano in Japan. As of November 2025, the volcanic activity continues, dropping volcanic ash on the surroundings. Earlier eruptions built the white sand highlands in the region. On 13 September 2016, a team of experts from Bristol University and the Sakurajima Volcano Research Centre in Japan suggested that the volcano could have a major eruption within 30 years; since then many eruptions have occurred. Sakurajima has a population of a few thousand residents, formerly incorporated as Sakurajima town, with a number of schools, shrines, and shops on the island. It is serviced by the Sakurajima Ferry which runs 24/7. It is a tourist destination known for its onsen, local pottery made from volcanic ash, and produce such as the Sakurajima daikon radish and Sakurajima komikan orange which grow in the immensely fertile volcanic soil. Sakurajima has many different natural areas due to its eruptive history and the ecosystems where recent eruptions have taken place have been researched as an example of ecological succession.
Geography Sakurajima is a stratovolcano. Its summit has three peaks, Kita-dake (northern peak), Naka-dake (central peak) and Minami-dake (southern peak) which has been recently active. Kita-dake is Sakurajima's highest peak, rising to 1,117 m (3,665 ft) above sea level. The mountain is in a part of Kagoshima Bay known as Kinkō-wan. The lava flows of the 1914 eruption connected it with the Ōsumi Peninsula. The former island is part of the city of Kagoshima which is only 4 km (2.5 mi) across the bay. The surface of this volcanic peninsula is about 77 km2 (30 sq mi).
Sakurajima is part of the Kirishima-Kinkowan National Park, and its lava flows are a major tourist attraction. The area around Sakurajima contains several hot spring resorts. One of the main agricultural products of Sakurajima is a huge basketball-sized white radish (Sakurajima daikon).
Geology Sakurajima is in the 25 km (16 mi)-wide Aira caldera, which formed in an enormous "blow-out-and-cave-in" eruption around 28,000 years ago. Several hundred cubic kilometres of ash and pumice were ejected, causing the magma chamber underneath the erupting vents to collapse. Tephra fell as far as 1,000 km (620 mi) from the volcano. Sakurajima is an active vent of the same Aira caldera volcano. Sakurajima was initially formed about 3000 years later and has had 17 large-scale pumice eruptions since. It is about 8 km (5 mi) south of the centre of the caldera, on its rim. Most of the lavas and tephra erupted have an andesitic-dacitic composition but there are some rhyolite composition eruptives. Volcanic activity at Kita-dake ended around 4,900 years ago: later eruptions. have been centered on Minami-dake. Initially since 2006, activity was centred on Showa crater, to the east of the summit of Minami-dake, but by 2025 had moved to the summit crater.
History
Prehistoric eruptions After the volcano formed about 26,000 years ago BP, until recorded history times only the largest eruptions can be identified. Pumice layers P4 to P17 include the P14 vary thick layer from a VEI 6 eruption over 10,000 years ago.
Historic eruptions Its first eruption in recorded history was in 963 AD. Most of its eruptions are Strombolian, affecting only the summit areas, but larger Plinian eruptions have occurred in 1471–1476, 1779–1782 and 1914.
1914 eruption
The 1914 eruption (also known as Sakura-Jima eruption or Taisho eruption) began on 11 January and was the most powerful in twentieth-century Japan. The volcano had been dormant for over a century until 1914. Almost all residents had left the island in the previous days; several large earthquakes had warned them that an eruption was imminent. Initially, the eruption was very explosive, generating eruption columns and pyroclastic flows, but after a very large earthquake on 12 January, and another the day after, it became effusive, generating a large lava flow. Ash fall occurred as far as the north of Honshu. The 12 January earthquake killed 35, and in total, 58 people died. Lava flows filled the narrow strait between the island and the mainland, turning it into a peninsula. It transpired that about 90% of the total magma volume in dense-rock equivalent was lava. Lava flows are rare in Japan—because the silica content of the magmas is high, explosive eruptions are far more common—but the lava flows at Sakurajima continued for months. The island grew, engulfing several smaller islands nearby, and eventually became connected to the mainland by a narrow isthmus. Parts of Kagoshima Bay became significantly shallower, and it made tides higher. During the last stages of the eruption, emptying of the underlying magma chamber sank the centre of the Aira Caldera by about 60 cm (24 in). This showed that Sakurajima draws its magma from the same magma reservoir that fed the ancient caldera-forming eruption. The eruption partly inspired a 1914 movie, The Wrath of the Gods, centering on a family curse that ostensibly causes the eruption.
Recent activity Sakurajima's activity became more prominent in 1955, and the volcano has been erupting almost constantly ever since. Thousands of small explosions happen each year, throwing ash to heights of up to a few kilometers above the mountain. The Sakurajima Volcano Observatory was set up in 1960 to monitor these eruptions. Between 1955 and 2024, 15,057 eruptions from the Minamidake and the Showa craters were observed. Monitoring of the volcano and predictions of large eruptions are particularly important because it is in a densely populated area, with the city of Kagoshima's 680,000 residents just a few kilometers from the volcano. The city conducts regular evacuation drills, and a number of shelters have been built where people can take refuge from falling volcanic debris. In light of the dangers it presents to nearby populations, Sakurajima was designated a Decade Volcano in 1991, identifying it as worthy of particular study as part of the United Nations' International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction.
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