is located in the western portion of

Yamanashi Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region of Honshu. Yamanashi Prefecture has a population of 817,192 (1 January 2019) and has a geographic area of 4,465 km2 (1,724 sq mi). Yamanashi Prefecture borders Saitama Prefecture to the ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the n ...

. Because the mountain has three peaks, it is also called Hōō Sanzan (鳳凰三山). It is in

Minami Alps National Park is a national park in the Akaishi Mountains, Chūbu region, Honshū, Japan. The Minami Alps National Park was established on June 1, 1964. It extends along the border of Shizuoka, Yamanashi and Nagano Prefectures for a length of , and a maxi ...

and is one of the

100 Famous Japanese Mountains is a book written in 1964 by mountaineer and author Kyūya Fukada.Hyakumeizan, Hiking Japan!
. Japa ...

Outline

Mount Hōō has three peaks: Mount Hōō is separated from most of the other mountains in the Akaishi range, giving a wider view of the surrounding mountains. Also, most mountains in the range have a reddish-brown color ("Akaishi" means "red stone" in Japanese), but Mount Hōō and

Mount Kaikoma is a mountain of the Akaishi Mountains, located on the border of Hokuto in Yamanashi Prefecture, and Ina in Nagano Prefecture, in the Chūbu region of Japan. Geography The peak is in elevation.

are the two exceptions, as they are

granite Granite () is a coarse-grained ( phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies un ...

mountains.

History

Metal ore was found in the mountain during the

Sengoku period The was a period in History of Japan, Japanese history of near-constant civil war and social upheaval from 1467 to 1615. The Sengoku period was initiated by the Ōnin War in 1467 which collapsed the Feudalism, feudal system of Japan under the ...

and, by the

Edo period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional '' daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was character ...

, the mountain was exploited for its metals and forest products. * In 1904,

Walter Weston Walter Weston (25 December 1861 – 27 March 1940), was an English clergyman and Anglican missionary who helped popularise recreational mountaineering in Japan at the turn of the 20th century. Background and early life Weston was born 25 Dec ...

became the first to climb the

obelisk An obelisk (; from grc, ὀβελίσκος ; diminutive of ''obelos'', " spit, nail, pointed pillar") is a tall, four-sided, narrow tapering monument which ends in a pyramid-like shape or pyramidion at the top. Originally constructed by An ...

on top of Jizōdake. * On June 1, 1964, this area was specified to the Minami Alps National Park. * In 1990, Sumie Tanaka ( 田中澄江 ''Tanaka Sumie'') completed ''New Flowers of the 100 Mountains'', which featured many of the alpine plants on Mount Hōō.''New Flowers of the 100 Mountains''(新・花の百名山), Bunsyunbunko, in 1995 by Sumie Tanaka,

Geography

Nearby mountains

Mount Hōō is on the subridge (from Mount Komatsu) of the main ridge line in the northern part of the

Akaishi Mountains The are a mountain range in central Honshū, Japan, bordering Nagano, Yamanashi and Shizuoka prefectures. It is also called the , as it joins with the Hida Mountains ("Northern Alps") and the Kiso Mountains ("Central Alps") to form the Japane ...

Rivers

The mountain is the source of the following

river A river is a natural flowing watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, sea, lake or another river. In some cases, a river flows into the ground and becomes dry at the end of its course without reaching another body of ...

s, each of which flows to the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the conti ...

. * Noro River (a

tributary A tributary, or affluent, is a stream or river that flows into a larger stream or main stem (or parent) river or a lake. A tributary does not flow directly into a sea or ocean. Tributaries and the main stem river drain the surrounding drai ...

of the Fuji River) * Ōtake River, Kotake River (tributaries of the

Tenryū River The is a river in central Honshū, Japan. With a length of , it is Japan's ninth longest river. Its source is Lake Suwa in the Kiso Mountains near Okaya in Nagano Prefecture. It then flows through Aichi Prefecture and western Shizuoka Prefect ...

)

Gallery

File:Mount_Houousan_from_Komatsumine_2001-1-4.jpg, Mount Hōō and

Mount Fuji , or Fugaku, located on the island of Honshū, is the highest mountain in Japan, with a summit elevation of . It is the second-highest volcano located on an island in Asia (after Mount Kerinci on the island of Sumatra), and seventh-highest ...

from Mount Komatsu at the sunrise File:Houousan_from_kaikomagatake_50_1996_9_15.jpg, Mount Hōō and Mount Fuji from

File:Houou1.JPG, Mount Hōō File:Mount Yakushigatake from Mount Kannongatake (Mount Hō-ōsan).JPG, Mount Yakushidake from Mount Kannondake