SEE PICS! Life of 170 people living on active Aogashima volcanic Japanese island

One of the best things in life is the opportunity to get to know the world, to see something new and surprising in every place we go. Now we will talk about one of those amazing places: the island of Aogashima.

Despite being 358 kilometers from Tokyo and being an island with only 160 inhabitants, Aogashima is part of the metropolitan area of that city and, as incredible as it may seem, it is perhaps more exciting to visit this small island than the city of Tokyo itself

Aogashima is in fact an underwater volcano that has emerged from the sea and is part of a large crater whose outer edge has a height range of 200 m to 420 m. It is believed that the island was formed by the superposed remains of at least four underwater calderas. Aogashima has crater rims inside and outside.

The south coast rises in a sharp cliff forming an edge of a caldera called Ikenosawa with a diameter of 1.5 km. The caldera is occupied by a secondary cone called Maruyama, which is still evident that it is emitting geothermal steam around an area where there are plants.

Otonbu, the peak of the outer crater rim at a height of 432 meters above sea level, is the highest point on the island. From the volcano you have a panoramic view of the entire Pacific Ocean.

The inhabitants of Aogashima have decided to live in the crater of an active volcano, perhaps many people would consider it something crazy, but once you visit Aogashima you will realize why its inhabitants continue to live there; It is difficult to describe in words how beautiful and welcoming the place is.

Its last eruptions were between 1781 and 1785, and although that event ended with half the population, fifty years later new people arrived to settle on the island.

The only two ways to get to Aogashima are by boat or by helicopter, perhaps in your opinion the most logical (and cheap) way would be to take a boat, but the truth is that it is difficult to find a place to dock, due to the conformation of the island where the majority of its coasts are cliffs and volcanic rock deposits, so there is not really a well-formed port.

If you want to arrive using the helicopter, you must go to the Hachiojima’s airport (this is the nearest island, which is about 60 km from Aogashima) and take the route that goes to the Aogashima heliport on the regular “Ai-land Shuttle” flight, which lasts approximately 20 minutes.