Tsurugisan

Tsurugisan Quasi-National Park covers approximately 8,629 hectares in the mountainous interior of Shikoku Island, spanning Tokushima and Kochi Prefectures. The park is centered on Tsurugi-san, at 1,955 meters the second-highest mountain in Shikoku and a peak of great cultural significance as one of Japan's 100 Famous Mountains. The park protects a landscape of rugged forested ridges, deep valleys carved by headwaters of the Naka River, and subalpine grasslands on the summit plateau. Tsurugi-san is venerated as a sacred mountain and has been an object of mountain worship since ancient times, with a Shinto shrine maintained near its summit. The surrounding forests, among the least disturbed remaining in Shikoku, shelter populations of rare and endemic species. The park provides critical watershed protection for river systems draining into both the Pacific Ocean and the Seto Inland Sea.