Sakurajima

Sakurajima is an active stratovolcano in Kagoshima Prefecture, on the southern Japanese island of Kyushu, rising from Kagoshima Bay to about 1,117 meters at its Kita-dake peak. It sits within the Aira Caldera, a large collapse structure formed by a massive eruption roughly 22,000 years ago, and Sakurajima itself grew afterward from renewed eruptions at the caldera's southern rim. It was a true island until a major eruption in 1914 produced lava flows that filled the narrow strait separating it from the Osumi Peninsula, physically joining Sakurajima to the Kyushu mainland. The volcano has erupted with extraordinary frequency since regular monitoring began, producing small explosive eruptions from its Showa and Minamidake craters on a near-daily basis in active years, making it one of the most continuously active volcanoes in the world, while the nearby city of Kagoshima and its roughly 600,000 residents live with regular ashfall as a routine part of life. This entity documents Sakurajima specifically as a geological formation, a stratovolcano built at the rim of the Aira Caldera whose 1914 eruption joined it to the Kyushu mainland.