Mount Pinatubo Facts: Height, Caldera, Lake and the 1991 Numbers

Name: Mount Pinatubo Tours
Brand: Mount Pinatubo Tours
Availability: InStock

Hours, prices and access verified by the Mount Pinatubo Tours team — last checked 2026-09-01

Every figure a visitor asks for, with the body that published it beside it. Two numbers on this mountain are genuinely disputed and one is deliberately absent; all three are flagged where they sit rather than smoothed over.

The mountain, in figures

What	Figure	Source
Height today	1,486 m	PHIVOLCS, via the published record
Height before 15 June 1991	1,745 m	PHIVOLCS; USGS
Lost from the summit	About 260 m	The difference between the two
Coordinates	15°08′30″N, 120°21′00″E	Published summit position
Provinces	Zambales, Tarlac and Pampanga meet at the summit	Published record
Range	Cabusilan sub-range of the Zambales Mountains	Published record
Distance from Manila	About 87 km north-west	Published record
Type	Active stratovolcano	PHIVOLCS
Current alert level	0, normal	PHIVOLCS
Last activity	30 November 2021, phreatic only	PHIVOLCS

The 1991 eruption, in figures

What	Figure	Source
Date and time of the climactic phase	15 June 1991, from 13:42	Published eruption record
Volcanic Explosivity Index	6	USGS; published record
Material ejected	More than 10 km³	Published eruption record
Ash column height	34 km	Published eruption record
Magma brought to the surface	About 10 billion tonnes	USGS
Sulphur dioxide into the stratosphere	About 20 million tonnes	USGS
Global surface cooling	About 0.5 °C	USGS
Deaths	847	Published eruption record
Evacuated before 15 June	About 60,000 from within 30 km	Published eruption record
Pyroclastic deposits	Up to 200 m thick	Published record
Caldera left behind	2.5 km across	Published eruption record

The crater lake, in figures

What	Figure	Source
Formed	A shallow lake by early September 1991	Published lake record
Surface area	1.83 km²	Published lake record
Surface elevation	About 900 m	Published lake record
Maximum depth	Disputed: research supports 95–115 m; a 2005 study claimed 600 m	Published lake record
Rim channel cut	September 2001, about 5 m wide	Published lake record
Volume released then	Roughly a quarter of the lake	Published lake record
People downstream at risk	About 40,000	Published lake record

The visit, in figures

What	Figure	Where it comes from
Cheapest guided day	From $101 per person	The listings, captured 2026-09-01
Longest guided day	14 hours	The private crater hike listing
Shortest guided day	8 hours	The Puning Hot Spring listing
Drive from Metro Manila	About 3 hours each way	The published itineraries
Drive from Clark	About 1 hour	Route guidance
Walk to the crater	1–2 hours each way, 3–5 km	The listings and their reviewers
Time at the lake	1–1.5 hours	The published itineraries
Largest stated group	12 travellers	One of the shared crater listings
Cancellation	Free to 24 hours before, on every one	The listings

Where these numbers come from, and which ones move

The mountain and eruption figures are the published scientific record and they do not change. The visit figures are the operators' own, captured on one day, and they do. Prices in particular are a snapshot: treat every dollar figure here as indicative and confirm it on the booking page. Ratings and review counts are the operators' own data reproduced as plain text, never marked up as though this site had collected them.

Five figures people get wrong

The trek does not reach 1,486 metres. It ends at the lakeshore at about 900 metres, nearly 600 metres below the high point.
The lake depth is not settled. The 600-metre figure is one study and it is contested; the research consensus is much shallower.
The eruption did not kill people mainly with lava. It killed them with wet ash on roofs, because a typhoon arrived the same day.
The lahars were not the eruption. They came afterwards, for years, and did damage far from anything the eruption itself reached.
Pinatubo is not dormant. It is active, monitored and currently at alert level 0, which is not the same thing as extinct.

The eruption itself puts these numbers in order, and what the day involves turns the visit figures into a plan. Every tour is listed on Mount Pinatubo Tours.