Why do over 1,000 people get lost every year in Japan?

A study led by Japanese Professor Emeritus Chiaki Aoyama has investigated why an alarming number of people are getting lost on Japan’s mountain trails every year. As detailed below, this investigation has revealed three major causes.

The number of mountain accidents in Japan increased sharply in 1994, following the “Mountain hiking boom” that began in response to the television broadcast of Japan’s 100 most famous mountains, and tripled from 962 in 1994 to 3,043 in 2015. Since then, the number has continued to increase slightly...