Aso-san Area

Introducing Aso-san Area

In the centre of Kyūshū, halfway from Kumamoto to Beppu, is the gigantic Aso-san volcano caldera. There has been a series of eruptions over the past 300, 000 years but the explosion that formed the outer crater about 90, 000 years ago must have been a big one – the crater has a 128km circumference and accommodates towns, villages and train lines.

It’s still the largest active caldera in the world – in 1979 an eruption of Naka-dake killed a woman on her honeymoon. The last major blast was in 1993, but the summit is frequently declared off limits due to toxic gas emissions. Check with the tourist information office for continuous updates. Officials may close the summit for a day or just an hour; it all depends on wind conditions.

Aso-san has literary value as well; in addition to its being used as the backdrop for a number of movies (those of Akira Kurosawa among them), it has been a key site for writers, artists and other literati to visit as well. Among them was Akiko Yosano, one of Japan’s first feminists and a gifted writer, who toured this area, staying in local ryokan and writing poems as she went along. In one of her tanka poems, she wrote, ‘In the faint mist covering Daikambo-san, the beauty of the morning glories stands out at the hotel, in the mountains of Aso.’

Last updated: Feb 17, 2009