Kirishima-Kinkōwan National Park

Kirishima-Kinkōwan National Park follows a line of volcanoes more than 100 km long through southern Kyushu. In the north stand the Kirishima volcanoes, a cluster of more than twenty cones and craters with crater lakes, hot springs and the sacred peak of Takachiho-no-mine. To the south, Kinkō Bay (Kagoshima Bay) fills a chain of calderas, with the ever-active Sakurajima rising opposite the city of Kagoshima, and at the southern tip of the Satsuma Peninsula lie Lake Ikeda and the cone of Kaimon-dake.

The park's history mirrors Japan's changing park system. Kirishima was designated on 16 March 1934 as one of the first three national parks. In 1964 it was enlarged with Sakurajima, the Ibusuki area and Yakushima and renamed Kirishima-Yaku. In 2012 Yakushima became a national park in its own right, the waters of Kinkō Bay were added, and the park received its present name.

Few places show so clearly how people live with volcanoes: ash from Sakurajima falls on Kagoshima on many days of the year, while the same volcanism provides the hot springs of Kirishima and the sand baths of Ibusuki.

Kinkō Bay is a line of volcanic depressions. Its northern basin is the Aira caldera, formed about 30,000 years ago by an eruption so large that its pyroclastic flows covered much of southern Kyushu with the Shirasu plateau deposits. Sakurajima grew on the southern rim of this caldera; its Taishō eruption of 1914 poured out enough lava to join the former island to the Ōsumi Peninsula. The southern part of the bay belongs to the older Ata caldera, near which Lake Ikeda and the conical Kaimon-dake (924 m) formed within the last several thousand years.

The Kirishima volcanoes lie on the rim of an older caldera to the north. Karakuni-dake (1,700 m) is the highest; Takachiho-no-mine (1,574 m) has a classic cone; Shinmoe-dake erupted violently in 2011 and again in 2017–2018; and crater lakes such as Ōnami-ike, one of the highest crater lakes in Japan, fill extinct vents.

Altitude and volcanic disturbance create a varied mosaic. The Kirishima slopes carry evergreen forest below and Japanese fir, hemlock and deciduous forest above, with dwarf azaleas on the summits. On Sakurajima, lava flows of different ages show every stage of plant colonisation, from bare rock to mature forest. The deep, sheltered waters of Kinkō Bay support unusual marine life, including tube worms at volcanic vents at an exceptionally shallow depth.

According to the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki, Ninigi, grandson of the sun goddess Amaterasu, descended from heaven to the peak of Takachiho, and Kirishima Jingū is dedicated to him. A bronze 'heavenly spear' (Ama-no-sakahoko) stands on the summit of Takachiho-no-mine. In 1866 Sakamoto Ryōma and his wife Oryō travelled to the Kirishima hot springs and climbed the peak, a trip often described as the first honeymoon in Japan.

Around Kinkō Bay, the Shimazu lords of Satsuma ruled from Kagoshima with Sakurajima as the backdrop of their garden Sengan-en. Life with ash is part of local culture: residents collect it in special yellow bags, and Sakurajima's volcanic soil produces giant radishes and tiny mandarins.