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 ori ...

located in

Nagano Prefecture is a landlocked prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region of Honshū. Nagano Prefecture has a population of 2,052,493 () and has a geographic area of . Nagano Prefecture borders Niigata Prefecture to the north, Gunma Prefecture to the ...

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 ...

. , 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 4,451 in 2091 households, 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 26 persons per km². The total area of the town is .

Geography

Agematsu is located in a mountainous area of south-western Nagano Prefecture, bordered by the

Kiso Mountains are a mountain range in Nagano and Gifu prefectures in Japan. They are also called the and they combine with the Hida Mountains ("Northern Alps") and the Akaishi Mountains ("Southern Alps") to form a group collectively known as the Japanese ...

to the north. The

Kiso River The is a river in the Chubu region of Japan roughly long, flowing through the prefectures of Nagano, Gifu, Aichi, and Mie before emptying into Ise Bay a short distance away from the city of Nagoya.Nussbaum, Louis Frédéric ''et al.'' (2005) ...

flows through the town.

Surrounding municipalities

*Nagano Prefecture ** Komagane ** Miyada ** Kiso **

Ōkuwa is a village located in Nagano Prefecture, Japan. , the village had an estimated population of 3,693 in 1558 households, and a population density of 16 persons per km². The total area of the village is . Geography Ōkuwa is located in the ...

** Ōtaki

Demographics

Per Japanese census data, the population of Agematsu has been declining steady over the past 60 years.

Climate

The town has a climate characterized by characterized by hot and humid summers, and cold winters (

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, notabl ...

''Cfa''). The average annual temperature in Agematsu is 10.1 °C. The average annual rainfall is 1676 mm with September as the wettest month. The temperatures are highest on average in August, at around 22.8 °C, and lowest in January, at around -2.2 °C.Agematsu climate data
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History

The area of present-day Agematsu was part of ancient

Shinano Province or is an old province of Japan that is now Nagano Prefecture. Shinano bordered on Echigo, Etchū, Hida, Kai, Kōzuke, Mikawa, Mino, Musashi, Suruga, and Tōtōmi Provinces. The ancient capital was located near modern-day Matsumoto, whi ...

Agematsu-juku was the thirty-eighth of the sixty-nine stations of the Nakasendō, as well as the sixth of eleven stations on the Kisoji. It is located in the present-day town of Agematsu, in the Kiso District of Nagano Prefecture, Japan. From the present-day J ...

developed as a post station on the

Nakasendō The , also called the ,Richard Lane, ''Images from the Floating World'' (1978) Chartwell, Secaucus ; pg. 285 was one of the five routes of the Edo period, and one of the two that connected Edo (modern-day Tokyo) to Kyoto in Japan. There were 6 ...

highway connected Edo with

Kyoto Kyoto (; Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin metropolitan area along with Osaka and Kobe. , the ci ...

in 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 characteriz ...

. The modern village of Komagane was established on April 1, 1889 by the establishment of the municipalities system. The village was divided into the towns of Komagane and Agematsu on September 3, 1922.

Education

The town has one public elementary school and one public middle school operated by the town government. The town does not have a high school. The Institute for Space–Earth Environmental Research of

Nagoya University , abbreviated to or NU, is a Japanese national research university located in Chikusa-ku, Nagoya. It was the seventh Imperial University in Japan, one of the first five Designated National University and selected as a Top Type university of T ...

is located in Agematsu.

Transportation

Railway

JR Tōkai -

Chūō Main Line The , commonly called the Chūō Line, is one of the major trunk railway lines in Japan. It connects Tokyo and Nagoya, although it is the slowest direct railway connection between the two cities; the coastal Tōkaidō Main Line is slightly faste ...

** -

Highway

Local attractions

* Nezame no toko (Nezame Gorge), a Nationally designated Place of Scenic Beauty

Notable people

Mitakeumi Hisashi is a Japanese professional sumo wrestler from Agematsu, Nagano. He is in the Dewanoumi stable. He is a pusher thruster-type wrestler. A former amateur champion at Toyo University, he made his professional debut in March 2015, reaching the top '' ...

, professional sumo wrestler

References

External links

*
Official Website
Towns in Nagano Prefecture {{Nagano-geo-stub