Q.What is Nara's highest mountain? Nara's mountains by the numbers

Nara's highest peak is also Kinki's highest

The answer to "What is Nara's highest mountain?" is Mt. Hakkyogatake (1,915 m) in the south of the prefecture. What is less widely known is that this is not just a Nara story. Look across the whole Kinki region — Osaka, Kyoto, Hyogo, Shiga, Wakayama, and Mie — and no mountain stands taller. In other words, Hakkyogatake is the highest peak in all of Kinki. It sits on the border of Tenkawa and Kamikitayama villages and is the main summit of the Omine Mountains, known as a birthplace of Shugendo mountain asceticism. Since the topographic maps issued in 2009, the Geospatial Information Authority of Japan has standardized the name as "Hakkyogatake." Almost all of Nara's peaks above 1,000 m are clustered in the south, giving the region a landscape utterly unlike the Nara Basin area in the north.

Two of Japan's 100 Famous Mountains, both in the south

Of the 100 Famous Mountains chosen by Kyuya Fukada, two lie within Nara. One is "Mt. Omine," whose main summit is Hakkyogatake; the other is "Mt. Odaigahara," straddling the Nara–Mie border, whose highest point is Mt. Hidegatake (1,695 m). Both are southern peaks along the spine of the Kii Peninsula, and both fall within Yoshino-Kumano National Park. Odaigahara is famous as one of Japan's wettest places, with a distinctive landscape of standing dead spruce. That both of Nara's Famous Mountains sit in the south sums up the prefecture's "mountains in the south" geography at a glance.

Lining up the five mountain ranges by elevation

Nara's mountains make more sense when grouped into ranges. The south holds the 1,900 m-class Omine range and the 1,700 m-class Daiko range that includes Odaigahara. Along the western edge, on the border with Osaka, lies the Kongo range (Mt. Kongo, i.e. Katsuragidake, about 1,125 m; Mt. Yamato-Katsuragi, 959 m). Toward the northwest, beside the Nara Basin, the Ikoma range runs on (Mt. Ikoma, 642 m; Mt. Shigi, 437 m), with Mt. Nijo (Odake summit, 517 m) just to its south. As the table and chart below show, elevations step up notch by notch as you head south — that is Nara's north–south distribution in a nutshell. For a deeper look at each range, see the related articles at the end.

About 77% forest — Nara, a land of mountains

That Nara is a land of mountains shows up clearly in the numbers. According to the Forestry Agency's prefecture-by-prefecture forest cover figures (as of 31 March 2022), Nara's forest cover is about 77% — roughly ten points above the national average of about 67%, meaning more than three-quarters of the prefecture is forest. Its planted-forest ratio is also high at about 61%, with cedar and cypress plantations — epitomized by Yoshino forestry — spreading mainly across the south. This rich woodland is protected too, as Yoshino-Kumano National Park covering Omine and Odaigahara in the south, and Kongo-Ikoma-Kisen Quasi-National Park in the northwest. Deep mountains and forest fill most of the prefecture; the related articles explore that north–south distribution range by range.

High mountains south, people north — terrain and life split by latitude

Lining the ranges up from south to north makes Nara's "high peaks in the south, low hills in the north" structure stand out — and that terrain mirrors where people live. Most of the prefecture's population is concentrated around the northern Nara Basin, where the flatland and transport links gather, while the deeply mountainous south is sparsely populated. In short: high mountains in the south, people in the north. Both 100 Famous Mountains, the deep forest behind that 77% cover, and Kinki's highest peak Hakkyogatake all lie in the south. Use this overview as a starting point and head into whichever range caught your eye — Hakkyogatake and Omine, Odaigahara and the Daiko range, Kongo and Katsuragi, Mt. Ikoma, or the north–south split of the population.

Datasets behind this article

• Forestry Agency: Forest and Planted-Forest Ratios by Prefecture林野庁
• National Land Numerical Information: Natural Parks Data国土交通省
• National Land Numerical Information: Tourism Resources Data国土交通省
• Nara Prefecture Population Estimates (Monthly, by Municipality)奈良県

Related reading

• Is the highest mountain in Kinki really in Nara?
• What kind of mountain is Odaigahara?
• Are there mountains to climb near the cities of northern Nara?
• What kind of mountain is Mount Ikoma?
• Does everyone in Nara live in the north?