Tottori Sand Dunes

The Tottori Sand Dunes stretch along the San'in Coast of Tottori Prefecture, Japan, facing the Sea of Japan, and form the largest dune system in the country, extending roughly 16 kilometers along the shore and up to 2.4 kilometers inland. The dunes accumulated over roughly 100,000 years from sand carried down to the coast by the Sendai and Chiyogawa rivers and then reworked and piled up along the shoreline by wind and wave action, a continuing depositional process that still reshapes the dune surface today, including tall ridges known locally as fukiage-hyoheki formed where wind lifts sand up the dune face. Some dunes in the system reach about 50 meters in height. Because they lie within Sanin Kaigan National Park, part of a UNESCO Global Geopark, ongoing coastal development and vegetation growth have required active management to keep the dune field from shrinking. This entity documents the Tottori Sand Dunes specifically as a geological formation, Japan's largest coastal dune system, built by river-supplied sand reworked by wind over roughly 100,000 years.