is a

town A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world. Origin and use The word "town" shares an o ...

located in

Iwate Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Tōhoku region of Honshu. It is the second-largest Japanese prefecture at , with a population of 1,210,534 (as of October 1, 2020). Iwate Prefecture borders Aomori Prefecture to the north, Akita Prefectu ...

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 town 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 15,580, 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 87 persons per km² in 6,155 households. The total area of the town is . In June 2001, the 34.8

hectare The hectare (; SI symbol: ha) is a non-SI metric unit of area equal to a square with 100- metre sides (1 hm2), or 10,000 m2, and is primarily used in the measurement of land. There are 100 hectares in one square kilometre. An acre i ...

old centre of town was protected as an Important Preservation District by the national government for its traditional

samurai were the hereditary military nobility and officer caste of medieval and early-modern Japan from the late 12th century until their abolition in 1876. They were the well-paid retainers of the '' daimyo'' (the great feudal landholders). They ...

residences.

Geography

Kanegasaki is located in the

Tōhoku region The , Northeast region, or consists of the northeastern portion of Honshu, the largest island of Japan. This traditional region consists of six prefectures (''ken''): Akita, Aomori, Fukushima, Iwate, Miyagi, and Yamagata. Tōhoku reta ...

of northern Japan at the confluence of the Kitakami and Isawa rivers and is bordered to the north by Kitakami-shi, to the east and south by Ōshū-shi. In the mountains to the west, there is a large reservoir known as Sengaishi that is dammed and used for irrigating the rice paddies in the plain below. Kanegasaki is characterized by a variety of geographical features, including mountains and wide expanses of rice paddies to the west and a small merchant district and neighboring residential areas to the east. On the border of Kanegasaki and Esashi two neighborhoods (Jōnai and Suwa-kōji) were once the location of the border between the Nambu and Date domains, and several examples of gardens and houses from the Edo period that were residences of samurai prior to the 1868

Meiji Restoration The , referred to at the time as the , and also known as the Meiji Renovation, Revolution, Regeneration, Reform, or Renewal, was a political event that restored practical imperial rule to Japan in 1868 under Emperor Meiji. Although there were ...

remain.

Neighboring municipalities

Iwate Prefecture * Kitakami * Ōshū

Climate

Kanegasaki has a humid climate (

Köppen climate classification The Köppen climate classification is one of the most widely used climate classification systems. It was first published by German-Russian climatologist Wladimir Köppen (1846–1940) in 1884, with several later modifications by Köppen, nota ...

''Cfa'') bordering with warm summers and cold winters. The average annual temperature in Kanegasaki is 10.3 °C. The average annual rainfall is 1323 mm with September as the wettest month and January as the driest month. The temperatures are highest on average in August, at around 24.1 °C, and lowest in January, at around -2.7 °C.

Demographics

Per Japanese census data, the population of Kanegasaki has remained relatively stable over the past 70 years.

History

The area of present-day Kanegasaki was part of ancient

Mutsu Province was an old province of Japan in the area of Fukushima, Miyagi, Iwate and Aomori Prefectures and the municipalities of Kazuno and Kosaka in Akita Prefecture. Mutsu Province is also known as or . The term is often used to refer to the co ...

, and has been settled since at least the

Jōmon period The is the time in Japanese history, traditionally dated between 6,000–300 BCE, during which Japan was inhabited by a diverse hunter-gatherer and early agriculturalist population united through a common Jōmon culture, which reached a c ...

by the

Emishi The (also called Ebisu and Ezo), written with Chinese characters that literally mean " shrimp barbarians," constituted an ancient ethnic group of people who lived in parts of Honshū, especially in the Tōhoku region, referred to as in contem ...

people. During the later portion of the

Heian period The is the last division of classical Japanese history, running from 794 to 1185. It followed the Nara period, beginning when the 50th emperor, Emperor Kanmu, moved the capital of Japan to Heian-kyō (modern Kyoto). means "peace" in Japan ...

, the area was ruled by the

Northern Fujiwara The Northern Fujiwara (奥州藤原氏 ''Ōshū Fujiwara-shi'') were a Japanese kuge, noble Japanese clans, family that ruled the Tōhoku region (the northeast of Honshū) of Japan during the 12th century as their own realm.Sengoku period The was a period in History of Japan, Japanese history of near-constant civil war and social upheaval from 1467 to 1615. The Sengoku period was initiated by the Ōnin War in 1467 which collapsed the Feudalism, feudal system of Japan under the ...

, the area was contested by various

clans before coming under the control of the

Date clan The is a Japanese samurai kin group. Papinot, Jacques Edmond Joseph. (1906). ''Dictionnaire d’histoire et de géographie du Japon''; Papinot, (2003)"Date", ''Nobiliare du Japon'', p. 5 retrieved 2013-5-5. History The Date family was founded ...

Sendai Domain The , also known as the , was a domain of the Tokugawa Shogunate of Japan during the Edo period from 1600 to 1871. The Sendai Domain was based at Aoba Castle in Mutsu Province, in the modern city of Sendai, located in the Tōhoku region of the i ...

during 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 ...

, under 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 ...

. The village of Kanegasaki was founded on April 1, 1889, with the establishment of the modern municipalities system. It was raised to town status on September 1, 1925. On March 1, 1955 Kanegasaki absorbed the neighboring village of Nagaoka, also from Isawa District.

Government

Kanegasaki 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 ...

town council of 16 members. Kanegasaki, together with the city of Ōshū contributes five seats to the Iwate Prefectural legislature. In terms of national politics, the town is part of Iwate 3rd 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

Kanegasaki has a relatively diverse economy that includes rice paddies typical of the region, but also extensive dairy farms in the western portion of the town and a large

industrial park An industrial park (also known as industrial estate, trading estate) is an area zoned and planned for the purpose of industrial development. An industrial park can be thought of as a more "heavyweight" version of a business park or office park ...

. The industrial park has several different manufacturing facilities, such as a

Toyota is a Japanese multinational automotive manufacturer headquartered in Toyota City, Aichi, Japan. It was founded by Kiichiro Toyoda and incorporated on . Toyota is one of the largest automobile manufacturers in the world, producing about 10 ...

plant that produces

Lexus is the luxury vehicle division of the Japanese automaker Toyota. The Lexus brand is marketed in more than 90 countries and territories worldwide and is Japan's largest-selling make of premium cars. It has ranked among the 10 largest Japanese ...

automobiles ( Kantō Jidōsha) and a

Fujitsu is a Japanese multinational information and communications technology equipment and services corporation, established in 1935 and headquartered in Tokyo. Fujitsu is the world's sixth-largest IT services provider by annual revenue, and the la ...

semiconductor A semiconductor is a material which has an electrical conductivity value falling between that of a conductor, such as copper, and an insulator, such as glass. Its resistivity falls as its temperature rises; metals behave in the opposite way ...

facility.

Education

Kanegasaki has five public elementary schools and one public junior high school operated by the town government and one public high school operated by the Iwate Prefectural Board of Education. In addition, the town is known for having developed a system of Life-Long Learning Centers situated throughout the town that provide educational and other opportunities for the local residents.

Transportation

Railway

East Japan Railway Company 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 ...

(JR East) -

Tōhoku Main Line The Tōhoku Main Line ( ja, 東北本線, ) is a long railway line in Japan operated by the East Japan Railway Company (JR East). The line starts from Tokyo Station in Chiyoda, Tokyo and passes through such cities as Saitama, Utsunomiya, Fuku ...

* -

Highway

International relations

Amherst, Massachusetts Amherst () is a town in Hampshire County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Connecticut River valley. As of the 2020 census, the population was 39,263, making it the highest populated municipality in Hampshire County (although the county seat ...

, United States (since August 1993) *

Changchun Changchun (, ; ), also romanized as Ch'angch'un, is the capital and largest city of Jilin Province, People's Republic of China. Lying in the center of the Songliao Plain, Changchun is administered as a , comprising 7 districts, 1 county and 3 ...

People's Republic of China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...

(since February 1989) * Leinefelde-Worbis,

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwee ...

(since September 2002)

Local attractions

* Tonomi Palisade Site, ruins of a late Nara-period fortification, National Historic Monument *

Nanbu-Date border mounds The are a series of earth mounds constructed in the early Edo period to mark the border between the Han system, feudal domains of Morioka Domain (Nanbu clan, i.e. “Nanbu territory”) and Sendai Domain (i.e. Date clan, i.e. “Date territory”) ...

, Edo-period border markers between

Morioka Domain 300px, Ruins of Morioka Castle was a '' tozama'' feudal domain of Edo period Japan. It was ruled throughout its history by the Nanbu clan. It was called during the early part of its history. It was located in northern Mutsu Province, Honshū, ...

and

, a National Historic Site

Noted people from Kanegasaki

Houko Kuwashima is a Japanese voice actress and singer.Doi, Hitoshi"Kuwashima Houko" ''Seiyuu Database''. 3 January 2011. Retrieved 9 January 2011. She is capable of playing a variety of roles, ranging from young boys to feminine women. She is affiliated with ...

, voice actress

References

External links

*
Official Promotion
in Japanese) {{Authority control Towns in Iwate Prefecture