Sakurajima And Kotsuki River, Kagoshima
About the Sakurajima and the Kotsuki River Camera
This camera looks along the Kotsuki River in Kagoshima City with Sakurajima rising beyond it. A river running through the middle of a city with an active volcano directly behind it is a composition you will not find anywhere else in Japan.
The Kotsuki is a class-two river about 26 kilometres long, running through the centre of the city. The Kajiya-cho district along its banks produced an extraordinary concentration of figures from the Meiji Restoration — Saigo Takamori, Okubo Toshimichi and Togo Heihachiro among them. No other single neighbourhood in Japan produced anything comparable.
Sakurajima erupts regularly, and depending on the wind the ash falls directly on the city. The camera is genuinely useful for this: you can see whether a plume is up and read from its drift which way the ash is heading. The river is worth watching in heavy rain too — it flooded badly in 1993.
Highlights & Nearby
- •Watch for: the Kotsuki River and its level, Sakurajima's plume and its drift, the city between them
- •Nearby: Ishin Furusato-kan, Kajiya-cho, Tenmonkan, Kagoshima-Chuo Station
- •Note: ashfall on the city depends on wind direction; the river is worth checking in heavy rain
