250px, Morishita area of Showa is a

village A village is a human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand. Although villages are often located in rural areas, the term urban v ...

located in

Gunma Prefecture is a landlocked Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Gunma Prefecture has a population of 1,937,626 (1 October 2019) and has a geographic area of . Gunma Prefecture borders Niigata Prefecture and Fuk ...

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 ...

. , the village 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 7,228 in 2751 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 110 persons per km². The total area of the village is .

Geography

Located in central Gunma, Shōwa is on the northwestern slopes of Mt. Akagi, it is surrounded on the north, east, and west by the city of Numata and borders Shibukawa to the south. The Katashina River and the

Tone River The is a river in the Kantō region of Japan. It is in length (the second longest in Japan after the Shinano River) and has a drainage area of (the largest in Japan). It is nicknamed Bandō Tarō (); ''Bandō'' is an obsolete alias of the ...

flow through the village.

Surrounding municipalities

* Numata * Shibukawa

Climate

Shōwa has a

Humid continental climate A humid continental climate is a climatic region defined by Russo-German climatologist Wladimir Köppen in 1900, typified by four distinct seasons and large seasonal temperature differences, with warm to hot (and often humid) summers, and cold ...

(Köppen ''Cfa'') characterized by warm summers and cold winters with heavy snowfall. The average annual temperature in Shōwa is 10.4 °C. The average annual rainfall is 1589 mm with September as the wettest month. The temperatures are highest on average in August, at around 23.0 °C, and lowest in January, at around -1.6 °C.

Demographics

Per Japanese census data,Shōwa population statistics
/ref> the population of Shōwa has been in decline over the past 60 years.

History

The area of present-day Shōwa was part of the ''

tenryō The Tokugawa shogunate, also known as the was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. The Tokugawa shogunate was established by Tokugawa Ieyasu after victory at the Battle of Sekigahara, ending the civil war ...

'' holdings in Kōzuke Province administered directly by the

Tokugawa shogunate The Tokugawa shogunate, also known as the was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. The Tokugawa shogunate was established by Tokugawa Ieyasu after victory at the Battle of Sekigahara, ending the civil wars ...

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 ...

. On April 1, 1889 with the creation of the modern municipalities system after the

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 Imperial House of Japan, imperial rule to Japan in 1868 under Emperor Meiji. Althoug ...

, Kuroho and Itonose villages were established within Kitaseta District, Gunma. In 1896, Kitaseta District and a portion of Agatsuma District were transferred to Tone District, The two villages merged on November 1, 1958 to form Shōwa.

Government

Shōwa 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 ...

village council of 12 members. Shōwa, together with the other municipalities in Tone District, contributes one member to the Gunma Prefectural Assembly. In terms of national politics, the town is part of Gunma 1st district 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

Traditionally, the economy of Shōwa was heavily dependent on agriculture; primarily

market gardening A market garden is the relatively small-scale production of fruits, vegetables and flowers as cash crops, frequently sold directly to consumers and restaurants. The diversity of crops grown on a small area of land, typically from under to s ...

Education

Shōwa has three public elementary schools and one public middle school operated by the village government. The village does not have a high school.

Transportation

Railway

Shōwa does not have any passenger railway service. The nearest station is in the neighboring city of Numata.