is a

city A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be def ...

located in

Kanagawa Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Kanagawa Prefecture is the second-most populous prefecture of Japan at 9,221,129 (1 April 2022) and third-densest at . Its geographic area of makes it fifth-smallest. Kanag ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the n ...

. , the city had an estimated

population Population typically refers to the number of people in a single area, whether it be a city or town, region, country, continent, or the world. Governments typically quantify the size of the resident population within their jurisdiction usi ...

of 242,798 and a

population density Population density (in agriculture: standing stock or plant density) is a measurement of population per unit land area. It is mostly applied to humans, but sometimes to other living organisms too. It is a key geographical term.Matt RosenberPopu ...

of 6800 people per km². The total area of the city is .

Geography

The city is located on the eastern bank of the

Sagami River The is a river in Kanagawa and Yamanashi Prefectures on the island of Honshū, Japan. The upper reaches of the river in Yamanashi prefecture are also sometimes known as the , and the portion near the river mouth as the . The river overall was ...

in south-central Kanagawa Prefecture, facing

Sagami Bay lies south of Kanagawa Prefecture in Honshu, central Japan, contained within the scope of the Miura Peninsula, in Kanagawa, to the east, the Izu Peninsula, in Shizuoka Prefecture, to the west, and the Shōnan coastline to the north, while th ...

on the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the conti ...

to the south. The

Hikiji River The is a Class B river in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. It is also called and . The mouth of the river is known unagi spawning. Geography The source of the Hikiji River is Izumi no Mori (literally "Forest of Springs"), a park located in near ...

flows through part of the city.

Surrounding municipalities

Kanagawa Prefecture * Fujisawa * Hiratsuka *

Samukawa is a town located in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. , the town had an estimated population of 48,679 and a population density of 3600 persons per km². The total area of the town is . Geography Samukawa is located in the flatlands of central Kana ...

Climate

The city has a

Humid subtropical climate A humid subtropical climate is a zone of climate characterized by hot and humid summers, and cool to mild winters. These climates normally lie on the southeast side of all continents (except Antarctica), generally between latitudes 25° and 40° ...

(Köppen ''Cfa'') characterized by warm summers and cool winters with light to no snowfall. The average annual temperature in Chigasaki is 15.9 °C. The average annual rainfall is 1872 mm with September as the wettest month. The temperatures are highest on average in August, at around 26.1 °C, and lowest in January, at around 6.4 °C.

Demographics

Per Japanese census data, the population of the city grew steadily for over seventy years.

History

The city has been inhabited since prehistoric times. The area was largely pasture and farmland well into the

Edo period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional '' daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was character ...

. The Tōkaidō connecting

Edo Edo ( ja, , , "bay-entrance" or "estuary"), also romanized as Jedo, Yedo or Yeddo, is the former name of Tokyo. Edo, formerly a ''jōkamachi'' (castle town) centered on Edo Castle located in Musashi Province, became the ''de facto'' capital of ...

with

Kyoto Kyoto (; Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin metropolitan area along with Osaka and Kobe. , the c ...

passed through what is now Chigasaki, without a post station. A large part of the area was the ''

tenryō The Tokugawa shogunate (, Japanese 徳川幕府 ''Tokugawa bakufu''), also known as the , was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005)"''Tokugawa-jidai''"in ''Japan Encyclopedia' ...

'' territory in

Sagami Province was a province of Japan located in what is today the central and western Kanagawa Prefecture. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "''Kanagawa''" at . Sagami Province bordered the provinces of Izu, Musashi, and Suruga. It had access to the Pac ...

controlled directly by the

Tokugawa Shogunate The Tokugawa shogunate (, Japanese 徳川幕府 ''Tokugawa bakufu''), also known as the , was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005)"''Tokugawa-jidai''"in ''Japan Encyclopedia ...

through the Edo period, though other parts were administered by small clans including the Ōoka clan, which is renowned for its descendant

Ōoka Tadasuke was a Japanese samurai in the service of the Tokugawa shogunate. During the reign of Tokugawa Yoshimune, as a magistrate (''machi-bugyō'') of Edo, his roles included chief of police, judge and jury, and Yamada Magistrate (Yamada bugyō) prio ...

. After the start of the

Meiji period The is an era of Japanese history that extended from October 23, 1868 to July 30, 1912. The Meiji era was the first half of the Empire of Japan, when the Japanese people moved from being an isolated feudal society at risk of colonization ...

, the

Tōkaidō Main Line The is a major Japanese railway line of the Japan Railways Group (JR Group) network, connecting and stations. It is long, not counting its many freight feeder lines around the major cities. The high-speed Tōkaidō Shinkansen largely parallel ...

railway connected Chigasaki Station with

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.46 ...

and

Osaka is a designated city in the Kansai region of Honshu in Japan. It is the capital of and most populous city in Osaka Prefecture, and the third most populous city in Japan, following Special wards of Tokyo and Yokohama. With a population of ...

in 1898, which spurred the development of the area. Chigasaki village in Kōza District, Kanagawa Prefecture became Chigasaki town in 1908. In 1921, the

Sagami Line The is a railway line in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan, operated by East Japan Railway Company (JR East). It approximately parallels the east bank of the Sagami River. The line connects Hashimoto Station in Sagamihara and Chigasaki Station ...

railway connected Chigasaki with Hashimoto to the north. Chigasaki became a

on October 1, 1947. On April 1, 2003, the population of Chigasaki exceeded 200,000 and it became a special city with increased local autonomy. On October 24, 2014, Chigasaki agreed with

Honolulu Honolulu (; ) is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, which is in the Pacific Ocean. It is an unincorporated county seat of the consolidated City and County of Honolulu, situated along the southeast coast of the isla ...

to establish the

sister city A sister city or a twin town relationship is a form of legal or social agreement between two geographically and politically distinct localities for the purpose of promoting cultural and commercial ties. While there are early examples of inter ...

relationship.

Government

The city has a mayor-council form of government with a directly elected mayor and a

unicameral Unicameralism (from ''uni''- "one" + Latin ''camera'' "chamber") is a type of legislature, which consists of one house or assembly, that legislates and votes as one. Unicameral legislatures exist when there is no widely perceived need for multi ...

city council of 28 members. Chigasaki contributes three members to the Kanagawa Prefectural Assembly. In terms of national politics, the city is part of Kanagawa 15th district of the

lower house A lower house is one of two Debate chamber, chambers of a Bicameralism, bicameral legislature, the other chamber being the upper house. Despite its official position "below" the upper house, in many legislatures worldwide, the lower house has co ...

of the

Diet of Japan The is the national legislature of Japan. It is composed of a lower house, called the House of Representatives (, ''Shūgiin''), and an upper house, the House of Councillors (, '' Sangiin''). Both houses are directly elected under a paral ...

Economy

The city is largely a

bedroom community A commuter town is a populated area that is primarily residential rather than commercial or industrial. Routine travel from home to work and back is called commuting, which is where the term comes from. A commuter town may be called by many o ...

for Tokyo and

Yokohama is the second-largest city in Japan by population and the most populous municipality of Japan. It is the capital city and the most populous city in Kanagawa Prefecture, with a 2020 population of 3.8 million. It lies on Tokyo Bay, south of T ...

, and has been noted as a seaside resort community since the Meiji period. Tourism and summer leisure activities remain important to the local economy. Companies headquartered in Chigasaki include: * Toho Titanium Corporation * Miyata Industrial Co Ltd * Autech Japan Co Ltd

Education

The city has nineteen elementary schools and thirteen middle schools operated by the city government. The city has four public high schools operated by the Kanagawa Prefectural Board of Education, and the prefecture operates one special education school for the handicapped. There is one private elementary, middle school and high school in the city.

Bunkyo University is a private university located in Shinagawa, Tokyo, Japan, with campuses in Saitama and Kanagawa Prefecture. The kanji of the word "Bunkyo" mean education and learning. The university offers courses mainly in education and research of the ...

has a campus located in the city.

Transportation

Railway

JR East The is a major passenger railway company in Japan and is the largest of the seven Japan Railways Group companies. The company name is officially abbreviated as JR-EAST or JR East in English, and as in Japanese. The company's headquarters ar ...

* -

Highway

* * * , to

* , to

Yokosuka is a city in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. , the city has a population of 409,478, and a population density of . The total area is . Yokosuka is the 11th most populous city in the Greater Tokyo Area, and the 12th in the Kantō region. The city ...

via

Kamakura is a city in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. Kamakura has an estimated population of 172,929 (1 September 2020) and a population density of 4,359 persons per km² over the total area of . Kamakura was designated as a city on 3 November 1939. Kamak ...

or Hiratsuka *

Local attractions

The shoreline from Chigasaki to Kamakura is called the " Shōnan area". A popular swimming destination, Chigasaki is well known as the birthplace of Japanese

surfing Surfing is a surface water sport in which an individual, a surfer (or two in tandem surfing), uses a board to ride on the forward section, or face, of a moving wave of water, which usually carries the surfer towards the shore. Waves suitable ...

. A shop called "Goddess," located only about 20 meters from the shoreline, claims to be the first

surfboard A surfboard is a narrow plank used in surfing. Surfboards are relatively light, but are strong enough to support an individual standing on them while riding an ocean wave. They were invented in ancient Hawaii, where they were known as ''papa he'e ...

shop in Japan. Bicycles with metal fittings for holding surfboards are prominent in the area. A section of the beach in Chigasaki is called "Southern Beach," inspired by the

Southern All Stars , also known by the abbreviations and SAS, are a Japanese rock band that first formed in 1974. The band is composed of Keisuke Kuwata (lead vocals and guitars), Yuko Hara (vocals and keyboards), Kazuyuki Sekiguchi (bass), Hiroshi Matsuda (dr ...

, a famous

J-pop J-pop ( ja, ジェイポップ, ''jeipoppu''; often stylized as J-POP; an abbreviated form of "Japanese popular music"), natively also known simply as , is the name for a form of popular music that entered the musical mainstream of Japan in the ...

singing group whose lead vocalist

Keisuke Kuwata is a Japanese multi-instrumentalist, singer-songwriter, and frontman for the Southern All Stars, as well of his own solo band, the Kuwata band. He has also done a significant amount of scoring music for films. He went to Aoyama Gakuin University ...

hails from Chigasaki. The symbol of Southern Beach is ''Eboshi-iwa'', a large hat-shaped rock that is visible from the coast. Southern Beach Chigasaki Monument

The city is known for being the center of Japanese Hawaiian culture with many tropical and Hawaiian stores located mainly in the southern side of the town. Fridays in Chigasaki was called "Aloha Friday" in which consumers were able to have discounts in many stores and taxis. Salesclerks and city officers are encouraged to work wearing aloha shirts as a part of

Cool Biz campaign The Cool Biz campaign is a Japanese campaign initiated by the Japanese Ministry of the Environment from summer 2005 as a means to help reduce Japanese electricity consumption by limiting the use of air conditioning. This was enabled by changing the ...

to promote its Hawaiian culture every summer since 2003. In contrast to the popularity as a modernized resort in south, north part of the city still retains some historical heritages. Ōoka Echizen festival is held in the family temple of the Ōoka clan (

bodaiji A in Japanese Buddhism is a temple which, generation after generation, takes care of a family's dead, giving them burial and performing ceremonies in their soul's favor.Iwanami kojien The name is derived from the term , which originally meant jus ...

) "Jōkenji" on May.

Sister cities

Okazaki, Aichi is a city located in Aichi Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 386,999 in 164,087 households, and a population density of 999 persons per km². The total area of the city was . Geography Okazaki is in the coastal plains o ...

, Japan, since July 1, 1983 *

, United States, since October 25, 2014

Notable people from Chigasaki

Richard Bozulich Richard Bozulich (born 1936) is an American author, publisher of Go (board game), Go books in English and college math instructor. He co-founded the Ishi Press. He has worked with several Japanese Go professional, professional players. He had ...

, author and publisher of books about go *

Hitoshi Doi is the owner of an English-language anime and voice actor information website, which was established on June 10, 1994. Personal website and voice actor database Born in Chigasaki, Kanagawa, Doi got his undergraduate degree in Applied Math at Un ...

Ailes Gilmour Ailes Gilmour (January 27, 1912 – April 16, 1993) was a Japanese American dancer who was one of the young pioneers of the American Modern Dance movement of the 1930s. She was one of the first members of Martha Graham's dance company. Gilmour's ...

, early pioneer of the American

Modern Dance Modern dance is a broad genre of western concert or theatrical dance which included dance styles such as ballet, folk, ethnic, religious, and social dancing; and primarily arose out of Europe and the United States in the late 19th and early 20th ...

movement *

Masato Hagiwara is a Japanese actor, voice actor, narrator and professional mahjong player. Biography When Hagiwara was three years old, his parents divorced and he was taken in by his father. However, his father died when he was in the fourth grade, and was th ...

Yūzō Kayama is a Japanese popular musician, singer-songwriter and actor. Life and career Son of mid-twentieth century film star Ken Uehara,and actress Yoko Kozakura, ( ja) Kayama graduated from Keio University. Yuzo Kayama signed with Toho and made h ...

lead pop singer *

Moomin The Moomins ( sv, Mumintroll) are the central characters in a series of novels, short stories, and a comic strip by Finnish writer and illustrator Tove Jansson, originally published in Swedish by Schildts in Finland. They are a family of white ...

, singer *

Isamu Noguchi was an American artist and landscape architect whose artistic career spanned six decades, from the 1920s onward. Known for his sculpture and public artworks, Noguchi also designed stage sets for various Martha Graham productions, and severa ...

, sculptor and landscape architect *

Soichi Noguchi is a Japanese aeronautical engineer and former JAXA astronaut. His first spaceflight was as a Mission Specialist aboard STS-114 on 26 July 2005 for NASA's first "return to flight" Space Shuttle mission after the ''Columbia'' disaster. He was a ...

JAXA The is the Japanese national air and space agency. Through the merger of three previously independent organizations, JAXA was formed on 1 October 2003. JAXA is responsible for research, technology development and launch of satellites into o ...

astronaut;

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeedin ...

STS-114 STS-114 was the first "Return to Flight" Space Shuttle mission following the Space Shuttle ''Columbia'' disaster. ''Discovery'' launched at 10:39 EDT (14:39 UTC), July 26, 2005. The launch, 907 days (approx. 29 months) after the loss of ''Co ...

crew member *

Tetta Sugimoto is a Japanese actor. Career Sugimoto was first a member of a rock band before he debuted as an actor in 1983 in the film ''Hakujasho''. For that film, he won a Japan Academy Prize best newcomer award. In addition to his work in film, he has als ...

, actor *

Ai Sugiyama is a Japanese former tennis player. She reached the world No. 1 ranking in women's doubles on the WTA Tour and had a career-high singles ranking of world No. 8, achieved on February 9, 2004. In her career, she won six singles and 38 doubles t ...

, professional tennis player *

Kohsuke Toriumi is a Japanese voice actor affiliated to Arts Vision. Biography He is a member of and . To commemorate twenty years of his debut, a book entitled released on May 16, 2016. He created his YouTube channel on March 19, 2020. Filmography Anime t ...

, voice actor * Kiyohiko Ozaki, Country Western, Popular Classic Standards and Enka.Special Box, 2007/Universal Music * Masahiro Yamamoto, baseball player *

Masumi Mishina (born 12 March 1982 in Kanagawa) is a Japanese softball player who won the gold medal at the 2008 Summer Olympics The 2008 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XXIX Olympiad () and also known as Beijing 2008 (), were an inter ...

, softball player

References

External links

Official Website
* {{Authority control Cities in Kanagawa Prefecture Populated coastal places in Japan