is the fourth-largest lake in
Japan
Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...
, located in central
Fukushima Prefecture
is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Tōhoku region of Honshu. Fukushima Prefecture has a population of 1,771,100 () and has a geographic area of . Fukushima Prefecture borders Miyagi Prefecture and Yamagata Prefecture ...
, south of
Mount Bandai. It is also known as the . The lake is located within the borders of
Bandai-Asahi National Park. It is a surface area of , circumference of , depth of and is located at an altitude of .
In winter
swan
Swans are birds of the genus ''Cygnus'' within the family Anatidae. The swans' closest relatives include the goose, geese and ducks. Swans are grouped with the closely related geese in the subfamily Anserinae where they form the tribe (biology) ...
s migrate to the beaches of the lake and stay there until spring.
History
Lake Inawashiro was formed some 30–40,000 years ago when a tectonic depression was dammed by a major eruption and
pyroclastic flow
A pyroclastic flow (also known as a pyroclastic density current or a pyroclastic cloud) is a fast-moving current of hot gas and volcanic matter (collectively known as tephra) that flows along the ground away from a volcano at average speeds of b ...
from
Mount Bandai. The water is acidic with a pH value of approximately 5.0, and has a high degree of transparency. The water level was considerably less during the
Jōmon period
In Japanese history, the is the time between , during which Japan was inhabited by the Jōmon people, a diverse hunter-gatherer and early agriculturalist population united by a common culture, which reached a considerable degree of sedentism an ...
as numerous artifacts and ceramic fragments have been found offshore.
The lake water is an important source for irrigation in the
Aizu region of western Fukushima Prefecture. An irrigation canal was completed 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 ...
and another, the Asaka Canal, in 1882. A third canal completed in 1915 supplies the city of
Kōriyama
is a city in Fukushima Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 321,938 people in 141760 households, and a population density of 425 persons per km2. The total area of the city is . Kōriyama is designated as a core city and ...
with drinking and industrial water. The water also supplies a number of
hydroelectric power
Hydroelectricity, or hydroelectric power, is Electricity generation, electricity generated from hydropower (water power). Hydropower supplies 15% of the world's electricity, almost 4,210 TWh in 2023, which is more than all other Renewable energ ...
plants. The lake is also an important tourist and leisure attraction in Fukushima Prefecture.
Notes
References
*
World Lake Database
See also
*
Hideyo Noguchi
, also known as , was a prominent Japanese bacteriologist at the Rockefeller University, Rockefeller Institute known for his work on syphilis, serology, immunology, and contributing to the long term understanding of neurosyphilis.
Before the Ro ...
*
Mount Bandai
External links
Inawashiro Tourist AssociationLake Inawashiro
Japanese travel guide)
Lake Inawashiro
visit AIZU)
Inawashiro
Lake Inawashiro
Inawashiro, Fukushima
Aizuwakamatsu
Kōriyama
Inawashiro
{{Fukushima-geo-stub