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Fuji is a city of about 245,000 people in eastern Shizuoka Prefecture, lying between Suruga Bay and the southern slopes of Mount Fuji, with the Fuji River running down its western edge. It is the third largest city in the prefecture, and the Tōkaidō Shinkansen stops nearby at Shin-Fuji Station.
The Tōkaidō highway passed through here, and the post town of Yoshiwara was known for the strange sight of Mount Fuji appearing on the left of the road, which Hiroshige drew. In the 17th century the Kariganezutsumi embankment tamed the Fuji River, and from the Meiji period the clear water fed paper mills that still fill the city.
Visitors come above all for the mountain: plum and cherry blossom at Iwamotoyama Park, the harbour view from Tagonoura, and the lookout at Fujikawa Rakuza. They also see Nichiren's temple of Jissō-ji, the daruma market at Myōhō-ji in February, and the floats of the Yoshiwara Gion Festival in June.
Iwamotoyama Park covers the top of the 193-metre hill of Iwamotoyama in the west of Fuji, 13 hectares of lawns and groves laid out above tea fields and orange orchards. It is famous for plum blossom from February and cherry blossom after it, with Mount Fuji rising beyond the trees.
Fujikawa Bridge carries the old National Route 1, now prefectural route 396, across the Fuji River in the west of Fuji, a steel truss bridge of six spans completed in 1924. Painted green, it frames one of the classic views of the city, with Mount Fuji rising beyond it over the wide stony riverbed.
Tagonoura Port is the harbour of Fuji on Suruga Bay, opened to foreign trade in 1966 and ringed by the paper mills and warehouses of the city's paper industry. Its fishing quay and breakwaters give one of the classic sights of Mount Fuji, snow-capped above the boats on clear winter days.
Michi-no-Eki Fujikawa Rakuza stands above the Fuji River at Iwabuchi in the west of Fuji, a roadside station joined to the expressway service area. Its upper floors hold shops, a planetarium and a wide observation lounge, and a large ferris wheel beside it looks out at Mount Fuji.
Jissō-ji is a Nichiren Buddhist head temple at the foot of Iwamotoyama in Fuji, founded in 1145 by order of the retired emperor Toba. Nichiren studied in its sutra store and is said to have written his Risshō Ankoku Ron here, and the store and its guardian figures are city cultural properties.
Myōhō-ji, known locally as Bishamon-san, is a Nichiren temple in the Yoshiwara district of Fuji, moved to its present site around 1700. Its great festival on the 7th to 9th days of the old first month, which falls in February, holds one of the three great daruma doll markets of Japan.
Fuchi Rokusho Sengen Shrine stands in the middle of Fuji and is known locally as Mikkaichi Sengen Shrine, after the market once held around it. Unlike most Sengen shrines it worships Oyamatsumi, god of the mountains and father of the goddess of Mount Fuji, and it is the chief shrine of Gakunan.
The Yoshiwara Gion Festival fills the Yoshiwara shopping street of Fuji on the second weekend of June, when 21 floats in eastern, western and mixed styles, a rare range for Japan, are pulled through the old post town. Called the greatest Gion of Tōkai, it draws over 200,000 people.
Ukishimagahara Natural Park opened in 2010 at Nakazato in the east of Fuji and protects a remnant of the old Ukishima marsh behind the coast. Boardwalks cross reed beds where rare wetland plants, herons and kingfishers survive, and Mount Fuji rises over the reeds on clear days.
Mount Fuji Children's World is the prefectural park on the slopes above Fuji, opened in 1999 and covering about 94 hectares. It is divided into a grassland, a water area and a small town, with ponies, rafts and canoes on the pond and a water playground, all under the mountain that gives it its name.
The Gakunan Railway runs 9.2 kilometres across the city of Fuji, from Yoshiwara to Gakunan-Enoo with ten stations, a small private line that once carried freight for the paper mills. Its old cars pass factories and fields, and night runs let passengers look out at the lit-up mills along the way.
Tagonoura shirasu is the whitebait landed at Tagonoura Port in Fuji, netted in Suruga Bay and sold fresh by the local fishermen's cooperative. It is eaten raw or lightly boiled on a bowl of rice, above all at the cooperative's canteen beside the harbour, with Mount Fuji over the quay.
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