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Shizuoka Live Cameras in Japan — 5 official webcams

Mount Fuji on three cameras — Lake Tanuki, erosion control and volcano monitoring — plus the Higashi-Izu volcano group and Yumigahama. One mountain, three reasons for a lens.

What you can see

Three of the five involve Mount Fuji — but not as three views of one thing. Different agencies put them there for different purposes. Fuji from Lake Tanuki (Ministry of the Environment) is the classic reflection shot; the Fuji sabo cameras (Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism) watch slope collapse at Osawa-kuzure and elsewhere; the Meteorological Agency's Fuji watches volcanic activity. The two that are not there for tourism show you the mountain as it actually is, which is not the version on the postcards.

The other two are the beach at Yumigahama in southern Izu and the East Izu volcano group — a scatter of small monogenetic vents on land and under the sea. In 1989 an undersea eruption off Ito built the Teishi Knoll.

5 cameras in Shizuoka

All 5 are still images. Tap one to open it in the camera list.

When to watch

Mount Fuji from Lake Tanuki is the classic head-on view across water. On a windless morning the mountain lands whole on the surface. If you want the inverted reflection, the window is just after sunrise, before the wind gets up.

Fuji shows itself best when the air is dry, from November through February. In summer there is too much moisture, and there are stretches where it only appears in the early morning. Snow usually starts capping it between late September and October and lingers into around June.

The erosion-control camera was installed by the ministry to watch for landslides, the Meteorological Agency camera to watch volcanic activity. Neither is there for the view, which is exactly why the three framings differ so much.

Closer looks at cameras here

Agencies publishing the cameras on this page

The footage belongs to each agency. This site is an unofficial guide, and each sample frame was copied once per camera under that agency's terms of use.

To filter or re-sort, go to the camera list. You can narrow the cameras by format, region, subject and provider.