This popular spot offers sweeping panoramas overlooking Kumamoto Castle and the Shirakawa River winding through the city, as well as beautiful night views and cherry blossoms in early spring.
Located just north of Kumamoto Station on the JR Kagoshima Main Line, its elevation of 133 meters makes this hill an easy one to climb.
Reportedly, when he was constructing Kumamoto Castle, Kato Kiyomasa quarried the necessary stones from this mountain. At its peak, there is a stone bench called koshikake-ishi where Kiyomasa is said to have sat upon as he directed the construction work.
Mount Hanaoka is also associated with the Kumamoto Band. Along with those in Sapporo and Yokohama, this group was one of three that spread Protestant Christianity in Japan during the Meiji Era (1868-1912). In 1876, about 40 students who had been introduced to Christianity by L. L. Janes, an American teacher at Kumamoto Yogakko (a school established to westernize former samurai), were baptized on this peak. The converts included Ebina Danjo, a missionary who was later president of Doshisha University in Kyoto and Tokutomi Soho, a noted historian and journalist. The Kumamoto Band's Monument to Christianity stands here.
There is also a stupa containing the cremated bones of Gautama Buddha, donated from India.