Are There Any Other Fuji Mountains?

It may sound like a silly question. Of course, Mt. Fuji, the highest mountain in Japan is only one. However, actually there are many mountains having the word "Fuji" in their names all over Japan. Those are called "Local Fuji Mountains (Kyoudo-Fuji)" and usually people call them with the place name as in "Ezo-Fuji(in Hokkaido)", or "Sanuki-Fuji(in Shikoku)", although it is not the official names of the mountain.

Since Mt. Fuji has been a special sacred mountain for Japanese people since ancient times, people are always eager to see Mt.Fuji even though they are not living close enough  to see actual Mt.Fuji. Therefore they started to call a local mountain "Local-Fuji" because either it looks similar to Mt.Fuji or it has some connections to Mt.Fuji. 

Even outside of Japan, there is a "Local-Fuji" in the U.S. as well. Apparently those who emigrated from Japan to Washington state in U.S.A. named Mt. Rainier as "Tacoma-Fuji" because they missed Mt.Fuji so much.

Even when there was no big mountains in a local town, people in old days still established some miniature Mt.Fuji, as in the right hand side photo, to compare it to the Mt.Fuji. They are called "Fuji-Monuments (Fuji-Zuka)". With the "Fuji-Monuments", usually a Sengen Shrine was built together. Sengen Shrine is one type of Japanese Shinto Shrines to worship Mt.Fuji and the headquarter of Sengen Shrine is at the foot of Mt.Fuji. 

At Some of the "Fuji-Monuments", visitors could climb up the miniature Fuji to get a blessing of Mt.Fuji. It is a tradition to receive a Mt.Fuji-blessing easily, especially in old times, since there were no way for most people to climb up the real Fuji.

The photos of real Mt.Fuji and "Fuji-Monuments" on this blog were taken at Hachioji City in the west side of Tokyo. The shape of the "Fuji-Monuments" looks like a mirror image of the real Fuji-view from the area.  

In addtion there are more photos of Mt.Fuji taken from West Tokyo area on my "Today's Mt.Fuji from West Tokyo" page! Please click here to see the page!