Volcanoes of the Philippines: Mayon, Taal, Pinatubo, Kanlaon and More

PHIVOLCS's official active list runs to 24 volcanoes across four regions: 13 in Luzon, 3 in the Visayas, 7 in Mindanao, and 1 in the Sulu Archipelago. The six with enough eruption history and current activity to warrant their own profile, Mayon, Taal, Pinatubo, Kanlaon, Bulusan, and Hibok-Hibok, are covered in full further down this page. The full list, with province and general location, is below.

Mayon dominates the city of Legazpi in Albay province, southeastern Luzon. Often called the world's most perfect volcanic cone for the symmetry of its shape, it has a base roughly 80 miles (130 km) in circumference and rises to 8,077 feet (2,462 meters) from the shores of Albay Gulf. Mayon Volcano National Park covers 21 square miles (55 sq km) around it, and large abaca plantations grow on its lower slopes.

Mayon holds the highest historical eruption count of any Philippine volcano, with roughly 47 recorded eruptions since 1616. Its most destructive eruption struck in 1814, when ballistic projectiles killed around 1,200 people in the town of Cagsawa. Survivors resettled and founded what's now Daraga, and the car-sized boulders still scattered around the Cagsawa Ruins date from that eruption. A 1993 eruption killed 79 people, and in December 2006, Typhoon Durian sent heavy rain onto Mayon's ash-covered slopes, triggering lahars and floods that killed more than 1,000.

Mayon has been in an ongoing effusive eruption since January 2026, still active as of this writing, the longest-running of the country's current active phases. A standing 6-kilometer Permanent Danger Zone around the volcano triggers evacuation whenever unrest picks up. Check PHIVOLCS's current volcano bulletin for Mayon's live alert level before planning a visit near the base.

Taal sits inside Taal Lake in Batangas, about 50 kilometers south of Manila. Its configuration is unusual even by volcanic standards: a lake containing Volcano Island, which itself contains a crater lake, a lake-within-an-island-within-a-lake arrangement that makes it one of the most photographed inland features in the country.

Taal has erupted more than 30 times since the 16th century. Its most destructive eruption ran for roughly seven months in 1754, burying four Batangas towns under as much as 40 inches of ash in some areas. Later eruptions in 1911 and 1965 killed 1,335 and roughly 190 people respectively, cementing Taal's reputation as one of the most consistently dangerous volcanoes in the country despite its modest size.

Taal's most recent major eruption, in January 2020, sent a phreatomagmatic ash column roughly 14 kilometers high, deposited ash across Batangas, Cavite, and Metro Manila, and forced the evacuation of close to a million people, with PHIVOLCS raising the alert to Level 4. Since April 2024, Taal has cycled through near-continuous phreatic and phreatomagmatic activity, with the most recent recorded events in July 2026. Check PHIVOLCS's bulletin for the current alert level before visiting.

Pinatubo sits at the tripoint of Zambales, Tarlac, and Pampanga provinces in the Zambales Mountains, part of the Cabusilan sub-range. Before 1991 it stood 1,745 meters (5,725 ft) above sea level, only about 600 meters above the surrounding plains, which largely obscured it from view. The 1991 eruption collapsed its summit into a caldera, lowering its current elevation to 1,486 meters (4,875 ft). It's about 87 kilometers northwest of Manila, and the former Clark Air Base sat just 14 kilometers east of its summit.

Geologists distinguish "ancestral" Pinatubo, active from roughly 1.1 million years ago, from "modern" Pinatubo, born around 79,000 BC in an eruption estimated at five times the scale of 1991. Modern Pinatubo then erupted episodically roughly every few thousand years, with its most recent pre-1991 eruptive period around 1500 AD, after which it lay dormant for nearly 500 years, its slopes fully covered in rainforest, largely unrecognized as a volcano by the people living around it.

The June 15, 1991 eruption was the second-largest terrestrial eruption of the 20th century, after Novarupta in Alaska in 1912. It released roughly 10 cubic kilometers of magma and 20 million tonnes of sulfur dioxide, sent an ash column 35 kilometers into the atmosphere, and coincided with Typhoon Yunya, which mixed rain into the ashfall. Global temperatures dropped by about 0.5°C over the following two years. Minor dome-forming eruptions continued inside the new caldera through 1993, and the caldera itself filled with monsoon rain to form Lake Pinatubo, later partially drained by controlled release in 2001 over concerns about crater wall stability.

Pinatubo's most recent recorded activity was a weak phreatic explosion on November 30, 2021, produced by hydrothermal fluids near the surface rather than fresh magma. PHIVOLCS had raised Alert Level 1 in March 2021 after a spike in seismic activity, then stepped it back down to Level 0 by August 2021 once earthquake frequency returned to baseline. The volcano is now a hiking and tourism destination, most commonly accessed via Barangay Santa Juliana in Capas, Tarlac.

Kanlaon straddles the border of Negros Oriental and Negros Occidental in the Visayas, and is the region's most active volcano. Its summit reaches 2,435 meters, making it the highest peak in the Visayas, with a crater roughly 400 meters deep and 100 meters in diameter at the top.

Kanlaon has erupted roughly 30 times since 1819, making it one of the more frequently active volcanoes in the country, even though its individual eruptions have generally been smaller in scale than Mayon's, Taal's, or Pinatubo's.

Kanlaon has been through an extended explosive and Vulcanian phase since June 2024, with repeated ash emissions and explosive events running into 2026. Its trails, when open, require a permit and guide from the DENR, and access is subject to closure during periods of unrest.

Bulusan sits at the southern tip of Luzon in Sorsogon province, part of the Bicol Region's cluster of active volcanoes alongside Mayon.

Bulusan has erupted roughly 15 times since 1885, and is characterized by sudden, steam-driven phreatic eruptions rather than the sustained lava effusion associated with Mayon.

Bulusan's most recent phreatic eruption occurred on April 28 and 29, 2025. It remains under close PHIVOLCS monitoring given its history of sudden, relatively short-notice steam explosions.

Camiguin, off the northern coast of Mindanao, packs seven volcanoes into just 238 square kilometers, the highest concentration of volcanoes per square kilometer of any island on Earth. Only Hibok-Hibok, at 1,332 meters, is currently classified active; the other six, including Mount Timpoong, the island's tallest at over 1,700 meters, and Mount Vulcan, are dormant or inactive.

Hibok-Hibok's 1871 eruption triggered earthquakes severe enough to sink part of a town, cemetery included, now the Sunken Cemetery tourist site marked by a cross visible from shore. Its most recent major eruptions, between 1948 and 1951, caused serious damage and loss of life, and formed the crater now filled by a green lake near the summit.

Hibok-Hibok has been quiet since its early 1950s eruptions but remains classified active by PHIVOLCS. Climbing it requires a DENR permit and guide, with the standard route ascending from Ardent Hot Springs in Mambajao and taking three to five hours to the summit.

PHIVOLCS monitors every active volcano in the country on a six-tier alert scale, from Level 0 (background quiet) to Level 5 (a major eruption actively underway). Each step up reflects escalating earthquake activity, gas emissions, and ground deformation specific to that volcano, and each carries its own recommended public response, from routine preparedness at Level 0 up to evacuation orders extending well beyond the summit at Level 4 and 5.

The general framework below shows what each level typically represents. Exact monitoring criteria, and the specific evacuation radius tied to each level, are calibrated individually per volcano based on its own eruptive history and hazard mapping, so the same number can mean a somewhat different radius or response depending on whether it's posted for Mayon, Taal, or Pinatubo.

PHIVOLCS separates volcanic hazards into two groups. Directly tied to eruption: lava flow, tephra fall and ashfall, ballistic projectiles, pyroclastic density currents (the fast-moving mix of hot gas and ash that's the deadliest of all volcanic hazards), lateral blasts, and volcanic gas emissions. Indirect hazards often arrive after the eruption has passed: lahars, debris avalanches, volcanic tsunamis, ground subsidence, and secondary explosions when hot deposits meet water later on.

Lahars are worth flagging specifically for anyone living near a Philippine volcano rather than just visiting. They can happen years after an eruption, whenever heavy rain remobilizes loose ash sitting on a volcano's slopes, which is part of why areas around Pinatubo and Mayon still carry lahar risk long after the eruptions that produced the ash in the first place.