located in

Sendai is the capital Cities of Japan, city of Miyagi Prefecture and the largest city in the Tōhoku region. , the city had a population of 1,098,335 in 539,698 households, making it the List of cities in Japan, twelfth most populated city in Japan. ...

Miyagi Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Tōhoku region of Honshu. Miyagi Prefecture has a population of 2,265,724 (1 August 2023) and has a geographic area of . Miyagi Prefecture borders Iwate Prefecture to the north, Akit ...

, is Japan's lowest mountain. From 1991 to 1996,日本一低い山再び？　津波で地形一変　仙台・日和山
2014年05月20日河北新報 and again on April 9, 2014, after the Tohoku tsunami, the

Geospatial Information Authority of Japan The , or GSI, is the national institution responsible for surveying and mapping the national land of Japan. The former name of the organization from 1949 until March 2010 was Geographical Survey Institute; despite the rename, it retains the same ...

recognized it as "the lowest mountain in Japan".

Overview

The mountain is located on the northeastern edge of Sendai City, facing the Pacific Ocean and Sendai, north of the mouth of the Nanakita River, and west of Gamo

Mudflat Mudflats or mud flats, also known as tidal flats or, in Ireland, slob or slobs, are coastal wetlands that form in intertidal areas where sediments have been deposited by tides or rivers. A global analysis published in 2019 suggested that tidal ...

. It used to be 6.05 m above sea level, with a

massif A massif () is a principal mountain mass, such as a compact portion of a mountain range, containing one or more summits (e.g. France's Massif Central). In mountaineering literature, ''massif'' is frequently used to denote the main mass of an ...

of about 40 m from north to south and about 20 m from east to west. There was one trail on the southwestern part of the massif, with 14 steps. During the Showa period, Kawaguchi Shrine (founded in 1374 (

Southern Court The were a set of four emperors ( Emperor Go-Daigo and his line) whose claims to sovereignty during the Nanboku-chō period spanning from 1336 through 1392 were usurped by the Northern Court. This period ended with the Southern Court definitivel ...

: 3rd year of Bunchu;

Northern Court The , also known as the Ashikaga Pretenders or Northern Pretenders, were a set of six pretenders to the throne of Japan during the Nanboku-chō period from 1336 through 1392. Even though the present Imperial House of Japan is descended from the ...

: 7th year of

Ōan , also romanized as Ō-an, was a Japanese era name (年号, ''nengō'', lit. year name) of the Northern Court during the Era of Northern and Southern Courts after '' Jōji'' and before '' Eiwa.'' This period spanned the years from February 1368 ...

)) was relocated at the northern foot of Mt. Hiyori. At one time, it was recognized as the lowest mountain in Japan as a mountain on the topographic map of the Geospatial Information Authority of Japan, but that position was ceded when

Mount Tenpō located in Minato-ku, Osaka is currently Japan's second lowest mountain. (The lowest mountain title is now held by Mount Hiyori in Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture - like Mount Tenpo, Hiyori is a man-made structure, and gained its title as the shorte ...

(Osaka City) was re-listed. For this reason, the word "Gan-so" (, meaning "original") was added to the information signboard at the summit that read "the lowest mountain in Japan". In 2011 (

Heisei The was the period of Japanese history corresponding to the reign of Emperor Akihito from 8 January 1989 until his abdication on 30 April 2019. The Heisei era started on 8 January 1989, the day after the death of the Emperor Hirohito, when hi ...

23), it was reported that the ground subsided due to the

2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami On 11 March 2011, at 14:46:24 Japan Standard Time, JST (05:46:24 UTC), a 9.0–9.1 Submarine earthquake, undersea megathrust earthquake occurred in the Pacific Ocean, east of the Oshika Peninsula of the Tōhoku region. It lasted approx ...

and that it was destroyed along with the Gamo Tidal Flat after being hit directly by the tsunami.野鳥の楽園、見る影なく一帯に砂、復元不能か蒲生干潟
河北新報 2011年 4月1日)国内で2番目に低い山、3・11の津波で消える

読売新聞 The is a Japanese newspaper published in Tokyo, Osaka, Fukuoka, and other major Japanese cities. It is one of the five major newspapers in Japan; the other four are ''The Asahi Shimbun'', the ''Chunichi Shimbun'', the ''Mainichi Shimbun'', ...

2011年9月14日) At the same time, Kawaguchi Shrine was washed away by the tsunami. However, it was reported on April 9, 2014, that it was recognized as a mountain with an altitude of in a survey by the Geospatial Information Authority of Japan. As a result, it fell below

for the first time in 18 years and again became the lowest mountain in Japan.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hiyori Mountains of Miyagi Prefecture Geography of Sendai