The Japanese Alps (日本アルプス, Nihon Arupusu) is a series of mountain ranges in Japan which bisect the main island of Honshu.

These mountains had long been exploited by local people for raw materials, including timber, fuel, fertilizer, fodder, meat, minerals, and medicines.

The Japanese Alps have been used as a place of ascetic practice for Buddhists monks and Shugenja since ancient times.

[4] Even now, it is very difficult to cross the steep Hida mountains, one of the world's heaviest snowfall areas, in winter.

As Kojima Usui later recalled, “in those days,... no one knew even the names of the mountains, much less their locations or elevations.

To go mountaineering was literally to strike out into the unknown country.”[5] The first modern geological survey sheets were issued in 1890.

William Gowland, an English geologist, first thought of this swath of terrain as forming a single coherent landscape, comparable to the European Alps.

[8] From the 1960s to the 1970s, the transportation infrastructure of the Japanese Alps was improved, and access to some popular mountain areas became dramatically easier, increasing not only climbers but also tourists.

These towering ranges include several peaks exceeding 3,000 m (9,843 ft) in height, the tallest after Mount Fuji.

The Northern Alps, also known as the Hida Mountains, stretch through Nagano, Toyama and Gifu prefectures.

The Southern Alps, also known as the Akaishi Mountains, span Nagano, Yamanashi, and Shizuoka prefectures.