was 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 ori ...

located in Shimokita District in northern

Aomori Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan in the Tōhoku region. The prefecture's capital, largest city, and namesake is the city of Aomori. Aomori is the northernmost prefecture on Japan's main island, Honshu, and is bordered by the Pacific Ocean to the east, ...

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 north ...

. Ōhata Village was founded in 1889. It was elevated to town status on 1 May 1934. On 14 March 2005, Ōhata, along with the neighboring town of Kawauchi, and the village of Wakinosawa (all from Shimokita District), was

merged Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are business transactions in which the ownership of companies, other business organizations, or their operating units are transferred to or consolidated with another company or business organization. As an aspect ...

into the neighboring and expanded city of Mutsu, and thus no longer exists as an independent municipality. Located in northern

Shimokita Peninsula is the remote northeastern cape of the Japanese island of Honshū, stretching out towards Hokkaidō. Overview It is bordered by the Pacific Ocean to the east, Tsugaru Strait to the north and Mutsu Bay to the west and south. Shaped like an axe ...

facing

Tsugaru Strait The is a strait between Honshu and Hokkaido in northern Japan connecting the Sea of Japan with the Pacific Ocean. It was named after the western part of Aomori Prefecture. The Seikan Tunnel passes under it at its narrowest point 12.1 miles (1 ...

, the town of Ōhata had an economy based primarily on

commercial fishing Commercial fishing is the activity of catching fish and other seafood for commercial profit, mostly from wild fisheries. It provides a large quantity of food to many countries around the world, but those who practice it as an industry must often ...

, primarily

squid True squid are molluscs with an elongated soft body, large eyes, eight arms, and two tentacles in the superorder Decapodiformes, though many other molluscs within the broader Neocoleoidea are also called squid despite not strictly fitting t ...

octopus An octopus ( : octopuses or octopodes, see below for variants) is a soft-bodied, eight- limbed mollusc of the order Octopoda (, ). The order consists of some 300 species and is grouped within the class Cephalopoda with squids, cuttle ...

salmon Salmon () is the common name for several list of commercially important fish species, commercially important species of euryhaline ray-finned fish from the family (biology), family Salmonidae, which are native to tributary, tributaries of the ...

and

sea urchin Sea urchins () are spiny, globular echinoderms in the class Echinoidea. About 950 species of sea urchin live on the seabed of every ocean and inhabit every depth zone from the intertidal seashore down to . The spherical, hard shells (tests) of ...

. At the time of its merger, 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 using a ...

of 8,663 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 RosenberPopul ...

of 147.8 persons per km². The total area was 58.59 km². Ōhata was served by National Route 279, but had no railway service. Formerly, the Ōhata Line connected Ōhata Station with

Shimokita Station is a railway station in the city of Mutsu, Aomori Prefecture, Japan, operated by East Japan Railway Company (JR East). It was formerly also the terminal station for the Shimokita Kōtsu Company's , which closed in 2001 and was replaced by a bu ...

via eight stations from 1939 to 2001. The train has now been replaced by a bus service.

References

Dissolved municipalities of Aomori Prefecture {{aomori-geo-stub