Mount Rainier is the taller of the two volcanoes: its official summit height is 4,392 m (14,410 ft), against 3,776 m (12,389 ft) for Mount Fuji, a difference of about 616 m. Both are active stratovolcanoes that can be seen from a giant city. Fuji stands about 100 km southwest of Tokyo on Honshu, on the border of Shizuoka and Yamanashi prefectures. Rainier rises about 95 km south-southeast of Seattle in Washington’s Cascade Range. Fuji last erupted in 1707–08, and its slopes carry no glaciers. Rainier has 26 major glaciers, and their meltwater makes mudflows called lahars its biggest danger. Fuji is climbed far more, by about 300,000 people in 2009 compared with Rainier’s 10,000 or so attempts a year. Each is protected in its own way: Rainier became a US national park on 2 March 1899, and Fuji was added to UNESCO’s World Heritage List as a cultural site on 22 June 2013. Since 1936 the two have been official “sister mountains”.
Which is higher: Fuji at 3,776 m or Rainier at 4,392 m?
Rainier is higher. The US National Park Service and the US Geological Survey (USGS) both use 14,410 ft (4,392 m) for the Columbia Crest, the ice dome on top of the mountain. That figure dates from a 1956 survey, and a 1999 survey gave almost the same result. Melting has now complicated the number. In the 2020s, surveyor Eric Gilbertson and colleagues reported that the Columbia Crest had melted below a rocky point on the southwest crater rim. They measured that point at 4,389.0 m (14,399.6 ft). Park geologists questioned their methods, and an official measurement in 2010 had found little change. Rainier’s summit plateau also has two lower named tops, Point Success at 4,315 m and Liberty Cap at 4,301 m. On its eastern flank, Little Tahoma Peak (3,395 m) is the eroded remnant of an older, higher Rainier.
Fuji’s highest point, Ken-ga-mine on the crater rim, reaches 3,776.24 m. It is the highest mountain in Japan and the second-highest volcano on any Asian island, after Kerinci on Sumatra. Fuji is not a match for Rainier in height, but it is more regular in shape. Its main crater is 780 m across and 240 m deep. Near the top the slopes are 31–35°, the steepest angle loose dry gravel can hold. Lower down they ease to less than 10° in the foothills, which gives Fuji the even cone it is known for. Rainier is more massive and broken up, with two summit craters each over 300 m wide. It is the most topographically prominent mountain in the contiguous United States, rising 4,026 m above the lowest point that links it to any higher peak.
Which volcano is more dangerous: Fuji after the 1707 Hōei eruption, or Rainier with its lahars?
On international hazard lists Rainier is the more dangerous of the two. It is considered one of the most dangerous volcanoes in the world and is one of the 16 Decade Volcanoes, a list of volcanoes picked out for study because an eruption would threaten many people. The main threat is not lava but lahars, fast mudflows of rock, ash and meltwater. In a 2008 report the USGS said about 80,000 people and their homes were at risk in Rainier’s lahar-hazard zones, and about 150,000 people live on old lahar deposits. About 5,000 years ago part of the volcano collapsed and produced the Osceola Mudflow. It removed roughly 500 m from the top of the mountain and reached the sites of present-day Tacoma and south Seattle. A smaller flow, the Electron Mudflow, came down about 530 to 550 years ago. Pierce County runs a lahar warning system of sirens and evacuation routes, set up by the USGS in 1998. In the 2024 evacuation drill, 45,000 students and staff took part from districts including Puyallup and Orting. A 2012 state estimate put the cost of a significant lahar at up to $40 billion.
Fuji’s record is of eruptions rather than mudflows. It sits near a triple junction where the Eurasian, North American and Philippine Sea plates meet, with the Pacific Plate sinking beneath them. The volcano grew in stages: Old Fuji formed between about 100,000 and 17,000 years ago, and New Fuji was built over it. Its last eruption, the Hōei eruption, began on 16 December 1707 and ended around 1 January 1708. It opened a new crater and a second peak, Mount Hōei, on the southeastern flank, and showered cinders and ash over the provinces of Izu, Kai, Sagami and Musashi, the last of which contained Edo, the city now called Tokyo. Fuji has not erupted since, and in December 2002 it was classified as active with a low risk of eruption. In 2012, models by Japan’s National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Prevention suggested pressure in its magma chamber could be higher than before 1707, although that cannot be measured directly. A new hazard map in 2021 increased the estimates for lava flows and possible vents, and an evacuation plan based on it followed in 2023. Rainier has been quieter in recorded history, with eruptive activity noted between 1820 and 1854. But its earthquake swarms continue, and the 2025 swarm released the most energy since monitoring began in 1982.
Does Mount Fuji have glaciers like Rainier’s 26?
No. Fuji is covered in snow for about five months of the year, but it has no glaciers. The only glaciers identified in Japan are on and around Mount Tate in the Hida Mountains of Toyama Prefecture. Fuji’s snow cap usually appears around 2 October. In 2024 it did not form until 6 November, the latest date since records began in 1894.
Rainier is the most heavily glaciated peak in the lower 48 states. It has 26 major glaciers and about 93 km² (36 sq mi) of permanent snowfields and glaciers. In a 2015 inventory, its 29 named glacial features covered 78.8 km² and held about 2.9 km³ of ice. The Carbon Glacier on the north side is the largest glacier by volume in the contiguous United States, and the Emmons Glacier on the northeast flank, at about 11 km², is the largest by area. The Carbon, Cowlitz, Nisqually, Puyallup and North Mowich rivers all begin at glaciers of the same name. In May 1970 the Nisqually Glacier was measured moving up to 74 cm a day. The ice is shrinking. Park scientists removed the Stevens Glacier from their inventory using 2021 data, and researchers reported in 2022 that the Pyramid and Van Trump glaciers had also ceased to exist. Heat from the volcano keeps parts of the crater rims bare, and steam has melted nearly 3.2 km of caves into the ice that fills the craters. One of them holds North America’s highest lake, at 4,329 m.
Which is climbed more: Fuji’s summer hikers or Rainier’s roped teams?
Fuji, by a wide margin. About 300,000 people climbed it in 2009, most of them during the July–August season when the mountain huts are open and the weather is warmest. Four main trails lead to the top: the Yoshida, Subashiri, Gotemba and Fujinomiya routes. Each has numbered stations, and most climbers start at the fifth station, which buses and cars can reach. The climb from there takes five to seven hours, and many hikers walk through the night to see sunrise, called goraikō, from the summit. The Yoshida route is the most popular, and crowding led Yamanashi Prefecture to introduce a 2,000-yen fee in 2024. It also set a limit of 4,000 hikers a day and closes the trail from 4 pm to 3 am to anyone not staying in a hut. Shizuoka Prefecture brought in matching closing hours on the other three trails.
Rainier is a glacier climb rather than a hike, and every route needs crampons, ice axes and ropes. About 10,000 to 11,000 people attempt it each year, and around half reach the summit. Most climbs take two to three days. About 90% use routes from Camp Muir on the southeast side, mostly the Disappointment Cleaver route. National Park Service figures count 471,792 attempts between 1950 and 2022, and about 84 climbers died on the mountain between 1947 and 2018. The first recorded ascents were also very different. Hazard Stevens and P. B. Van Trump reached Rainier’s summit in 1870 and were welcomed as heroes in Olympia; Fay Fuller made the first ascent by a woman in 1890. On Fuji, Tatsu Takayama made the first recorded ascent by a woman in 1832, when the summit was still officially closed to women. Japan lifted the ban by edict on 4 May 1872. The British diplomat Sir Rutherford Alcock made the first ascent by a foreigner in September 1860.
Which is sacred and which is protected: UNESCO in 2013 or a national park in 1899?
Fuji is protected mainly for its religious and artistic history, and Rainier mainly as wild land. Fuji is one of Japan’s Three Holy Mountains, along with Mount Tate and Mount Haku. Shinto tradition identifies the goddess Konohanasakuya-hime with the mountain, and she is honoured at the Fujisan Hongū Sengen Taisha shrine. Pilgrim groups known as Fuji-kō climbed it in the Edo period, and the artist Hokusai painted it in his Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji in the 1830s. UNESCO’s 2013 listing is as a cultural site, “Fujisan, sacred place and source of artistic inspiration”, covering 25 locations. It also lies within Fuji-Hakone-Izu National Park, which was founded on 2 February 1936 as Fuji-Hakone National Park, one of Japan’s first four national parks.
President William McKinley created Mount Rainier National Park on 2 March 1899 to protect “all timber, mineral deposits, natural curiosities, or wonders” within it. The park covers 956.6 km². Since 1988, 97% of it has been designated wilderness, and in 1997 it became a National Historic Landmark for its 1920s–30s rustic buildings such as the Paradise Inn. It had more than 1.6 million visitors in 2024. Indigenous peoples have lived around the mountain for thousands of years and are represented today by tribes including the Nisqually, Puyallup, Muckleshoot, Yakama and Cowlitz. A 2025 study counted 20 Indigenous names for the mountain, among them Tahoma and the Lushootseed xʷaq̓ʷ, “sky wiper”. George Vancouver named it after his friend Rear Admiral Peter Rainier, and the US Board on Geographic Names confirmed that name in 1890. On 30 April 1936 Mount Rainier National Park and Fuji-Hakone National Park began a first-of-its-kind sister-mountain relationship, and Japanese American immigrants around Seattle called Rainier “Tacoma-Fuji”.
For the geology the two mountains share, see our explainer on what a stratovolcano is, then read more about Fuji’s World Heritage listing or the volcanic hazards of Mount Rainier.