270px, Kimotsuki Town Hall 270px, Kimotsuki River 270px, '' Yabusame'' in Kimitsuki is a

town A town is a type of a human settlement, generally larger than a village but smaller than a city. The criteria for distinguishing a town vary globally, often depending on factors such as population size, economic character, administrative stat ...

in Kimotsuki District. , the town had an estimated

population Population is a set of humans or other organisms in a given region or area. Governments conduct a census to quantify the resident population size within a given jurisdiction. The term is also applied to non-human animals, microorganisms, and pl ...

of 13,766 in 7503 households, and a

population density Population density (in agriculture: Standing stock (disambiguation), 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 geog ...

of 45 persons per km². The total area of the town is .

Geography

Kimotsuki located in the eastern part of the

Ōsumi Peninsula image:Osumi Peninsula Kagoshima Japan SRTM.jpg, 261x261px, Satellite image of Ōsumi Peninsula The projects south from the Japanese island of Kyūshū and includes the southernmost point on the island, Cape Sata. Its east coast lies on the Pacifi ...

. The alluvial plain of the Kimabe River extends to the northwestern part of the town, however, most of the town's area is occupied by mountains that form part of the Kimabe Mountains. The Kasanohara Plateau, which is famous as the Shirasu Plateau, spreads out at in northwest. The Kinosuke River flows near the border with Kanoya. The town faces faces Shibushi Bay to the northeast, Uchinoura Bay to the east, and the

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

to the southeast. The former Takayama Town in the northwest and the former Uchinoura Town in the southeast are separated by Mount Kunimi, and it used to take more than 30 minutes to travel between the centers of both towns via Japan National Route 448. The Kunimi Tunnel (Kagoshima Prefectural Route 561), which runs through Mt. Kunimi, was opened in 2002, greatly shortened travel time. In addition, the Shibushi National Petroleum Reserve Base, which was created by reclaiming off the coast of Shibushi Bay, belongs to Kimotsuki.

Neighboring municipalities

Kagoshima Prefecture * Higashikushira *

Kanoya file:Kanoya City Hall.jpg, 270px, Kanoya City Hall is a city in Kagoshima Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 98,367 in 46114 households, and a population density of 100 persons per km². The total area of the city is . ...

* Kinkō * Minamiōsumi

Climate

Kimotsuki has a

humid subtropical climate A humid subtropical climate is a subtropical -temperate climate type, characterized by long and hot summers, and cool to mild winters. These climates normally lie on the southeast side of all continents (except Antarctica), generally between ...

(

Köppen climate classification The Köppen climate classification divides Earth climates into five main climate groups, with each group being divided based on patterns of seasonal precipitation and temperature. The five main groups are ''A'' (tropical), ''B'' (arid), ''C'' (te ...

''Cfa'') with hot summers and mild winters. Precipitation is significant throughout the year, and is heavier in summer, especially the months of June and July. The average annual temperature in Kimotsuki is . The average annual rainfall is with June as the wettest month. The temperatures are highest on average in August, at around , and lowest in January, at around . Its record high is , reached on 18 August 2020, and its record low is , reached on 25 January 2016.

Demographics

Per Japanese census data, the population of Kimotsuki in 2020 is 14,227 people. Kimotsuki has been conducting censuses since 1920. The town's population peaked in the 1950s and has been slowly declining since then, with no sign of a recovery until 2020.

History

The area of Kimotsuki was part of ancient

Ōsumi Province was a province of Japan in the area of southeastern Kyūshū, corresponding to the eastern half of modern Kagoshima Prefecture, and including the Ōsumi Islands . Ōsumi bordered on Hyūga to the northeast, and Satsuma Province to the nor ...

. The area has may remains from the

Kofun period The is an era in the history of Japan from about 300 to 538 AD (the date of the introduction of Buddhism), following the Yayoi period. The Kofun and the subsequent Asuka periods are sometimes collectively called the Yamato period. This period is ...

. The Kimotsuki clan ruled the area from the mid-

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 Kammu, moved the capital of Japan to Heian-kyō (modern Kyoto). means in Japanese. It is a ...

to the end of the

Sengoku period The was the period in History of Japan, Japanese history in which civil wars and social upheavals took place almost continuously in the 15th and 16th centuries. The Kyōtoku incident (1454), Ōnin War (1467), or (1493) are generally chosen as th ...

. During the

Edo Period The , also known as the , is the period between 1600 or 1603 and 1868 in the history of Japan, when the country was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and some 300 regional ''daimyo'', or feudal lords. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengok ...

, the area was part of the holdings of

Satsuma Domain The , briefly known as the , was a Han system, domain (''han'') of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan during the Edo period from 1600 to 1871. The Satsuma Domain was based at Kagoshima Castle in Satsuma Province, the core of the modern city of ...

. The villages of Kōyama and Uchinoura were established on May 1, 1889 with the creation of the modern municipalities system. Both Kōyama and Uchinoura were raised to town status in 1932. The town of Kimotsuki was founded on July 1, 2005 from the merger of the towns of KōyamaUchinoura.

Government

Kimotsuki 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 consisting of one house or assembly that legislates and votes as one. Unicameralism has become an increasingly common type of legislature, making up nearly ...

town council of 14 members. Kimotsuki, collectively with the other municipalities of Kimotsuki District, contributes one member to the Kagoshima Prefectural Assembly. In terms of national politics, the town is part of the

Kagoshima 4th district , the House of Representatives of Japan is elected from a combination of multi-member districts and single-member districts, a method called parallel voting. Currently, 176 members are elected from 11 multi-member districts (called proportional re ...

of the

lower house A lower house is the lower chamber of a bicameral legislature, where the other chamber is the upper house. Although styled as "below" the upper house, in many legislatures worldwide, the lower house has come to wield more power or otherwise e ...

of the

Diet of Japan , transcription_name = ''Kokkai'' , legislature = 215th Session of the National Diet , coa_pic = Flag of Japan.svg , house_type = Bicameral , houses = , foundation=29 November 1890(), leader1_type ...

Economy

The economy of Kimotsuki is based largely on agriculture and commercial fishing.

Education

Kimotsuki has five public elementary high schools, four public junior high schools and one public high operated by the town government. The town has one public high school operated by the Kagoshima Prefectural Board of Education, and one private combined middle/high school.

Transportation

Railways

Kimotsuki does not have any passenger railway service. The nearest major station is

Kagoshima-Chūō Station is a major railway station in the city of Kagoshima, Japan. It is operated by the Kyushu Railway Company (JR Kyushu). It is also the southernmost high-speed Shinkansen railway terminal in Japan. Lines The station is the southern terminus of the ...

on the

Kyushu Shinkansen The is a Japanese Shinkansen high-speed railway network. It is an extension of the San'yō Shinkansen from Honshu connecting the city of Fukuoka (Hakata Station) in the north of Japan's Kyushu Island to the city of Kagoshima (Kagoshima-Chuo Sta ...

Highways

* *

Local attractions

Kōyama Castle was a ''yamajiro''-style Japanese castle located in the Shintomi-honjō neighborhood of the town of Kimotsuki, Kagoshima Prefecture, Japan. Its ruins have been protected as a National Historic Site since 1945. Overview Kōyama Castle was loc ...

ruins (National Historic Site) * Nikaido House ( National Important Cultural Property) * Osumi Nanbu Prefectural Natural Park * Shijukusho Shrine * Todoro Falls *

Tsukazaki Kofun Cluster The is a group of Kofun period burial mounds, located in the town of Kimotsuki, Kagoshima Prefecture Japan. The tumulus cluster was designated a National Historic Site of Japan in 1945, with the area under protection expanded in 2013, 2020 an ...

( National Historic Site) *

Uchinoura Space Center The is a space launch facility in the Japanese town of Kimotsuki, Kagoshima Prefecture. Before the establishment of the JAXA space agency in 2003, it was simply called the (KSC). All of Japan's scientific satellites were launched from Uchino ...

* Yabusame Public Park

Events and festivals

* Doya Doya Sa (January 7) * Staff and sickle dances (March) * Nagoshidon (mid-August) * Honmachi Hachigatsu Odori (Fourth Saturday of August, every even year) * Eggane Festival (September or October) * Yabusame Festival (Third Sunday of October) * Uchinoura Galaxy Marathon, commemorating the formation of the Republic of Uchinoura and the Galaxy Federation (November)

Mascots

Kimotsuki has two town mascots (see

yuru-chara is a Japanese term for a category of mascot characters; usually created to promote a place or region, event, organisation or business. They are characterized by their '' kawaii'' (cute) and unsophisticated designs, often incorporating motifs th ...

) created by the Kimotsuki Tourism Association. Both wear purple outfits based on the traditional costume of the Yabusame Festival archer and have satellite heads. They generally make appearances at town sanctioned events. * Itemaru-kun: An alien born in 2010 when asteroid-explorer

Hayabusa was a robotic spacecraft developed by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) to return a sample of material from a small near-Earth asteroid named 25143 Itokawa to Earth for further analysis. ''Hayabusa'', formerly known as MUSES-C ...

returned to earth. * Hayabusame-kun: A sea turtle, named by combining the words "hayabusa" and "yabusame."

Sister cities

The Galaxy Federation

Before the merger, the town of Uchinoura was a part of the Galaxy Federation, a chain of friendship cities that each house a JAXA space center. It joined the federation as a founding member on November 8, 1987 and received the name the Republic of Uchinoura. The friendship city relations were still retained when Uchinoura merged with Koyama to become Kimotsuki town, and it is now called the Republic of Uchinoura Kimotsuki within the federation. The most recent member of the federation, the city of Kakuda in Miyagi Prefecture, joined on April 2, 2016. * Ofunato, Iwate (The Republic of Sanriku Ofunato) * Noshiro, Akita (The Republic of Noshiro) *

Sagamihara is a city in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. , the city has an estimated population of 723,470, with 334,812 households, and a population density of 1,220 persons per km2. The total area of the city is . Sagamihara is the third-most-populous city ...

, Kanagawa (The Republic of Sagamihara) * Saku, Nagano (The Republic of Saku) * Taiki, Hokkaido (The Republic of Taiki)

Space Brother Cities

Kimotsuki and the town of Minamitane, home to Tanegashima's JAXA space center, signed the “Space Brother Cities Declaration” on July 3, 2013. The naming comes from the manga and anime series Space Brothers, and the official document even features an illustration of the two main characters, the Nanba brothers.

Noted people from Kimotsuki

Susumu Nikaidō was a Japanese politician who served in the House of Representatives and as Chief Cabinet Secretary from 1972 to 1974. He was a member of the Liberal Democratic Party and headed one of its most powerful factions in the 1980s. Early life Nikai ...

, politician

References

External links

*
Kimotsuki official website
* Kimotsuki Wikipedia page {{Authority control Towns in Kagoshima Prefecture Populated coastal places in Japan Kimotsuki, Kagoshima