Sacred mountains where being of "Kami" is found

Since primeval days to date, the Japanese have regarded certain mountains as objects of worship believing that mountains are places where multitudinous gods reside. This belief in mountains as sacred places still lives on and is practiced in the Japanese traditional religion, Shinto, which is based on animism and ancestor worship. Today, this notion of sacredness is generally accepted and understood together with concepts from Chinese philosophies, such as Confucianism and Taoism, and Buddhism, which have evolved over a long time. In Japan, volcanoes or high, well-formed mountains, as well as smaller hills standing close to human settlements, were believed to be sacred places. This paper explores how temples and shrines have been intentionally situated in relation to such mountains in order to create the sacred place as a whole area.