Classroom lesson 路 Mount Fuji馃嚡馃嚨 Japan

Mount Fuji

Japan's tallest mountain, with an almost perfect cone shape

The snow-capped, almost symmetrical cone of Mount Fuji against a clear blue sky

Photo 路 Wikimedia Commons

What is it?

Mount Fuji is the tallest mountain in Japan, 3,776 metres high. It is a volcano - but it has been quiet for over 300 years, so people climb it for fun. On a clear day, you can see it from Tokyo, more than 100 km away.

Tell me more

Mount Fuji is famous for its shape. The sides slope down at almost exactly the same angle on every side, making an almost-perfect triangle. That shape, with a snowy top, has been drawn and painted in Japan for hundreds of years - it is one of the most recognisable mountains in the world.

Every summer, around 300,000 people climb Fuji. Most start in the afternoon, sleep in a wooden mountain hut halfway up, and then wake at 3 a.m. to walk to the top for sunrise. The first light at the summit is so special in Japan that it has its own name: goraik艒, meaning 'the arrival of light'.

Fuji is part of the 'Ring of Fire' - the chain of volcanoes that runs all the way around the edge of the Pacific Ocean. Most of Japan's mountains were made by volcanoes. Fuji's last big eruption was in 1707. Scientists watch it carefully, but it has been sleeping for a very long time.

The mountain is a UNESCO World Heritage Site - recognised as important for the whole world. It is also seen as one of Japan's 'Three Holy Mountains', and many old paintings and woodblock prints, like Hokusai's famous Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji, feature it.

In the classroom

Walk your class through this in 15 minutes.

Talk together

Discussion prompts

  1. 01Why might so many people want to be at the top of a mountain at sunrise?
  2. 02Mount Fuji has been painted and drawn for hundreds of years. Why do you think people draw the same place over and over again?
  3. 03What is a mountain or hill near where you live? Have you ever walked up it?
Try this

Classroom activity

Each pupil draws their own version of Mount Fuji - same triangle shape, same snowy top, but with their own choice of weather, time of day, and what is in front of it (a town, a forest, a lake). Put them all up on the wall. Like Hokusai's 'Thirty-Six Views', no two will be the same.