280px, Kongōrin-ji Hondō, a National Treasure 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 ...

located in Echi District in eastern

Shiga Prefecture is a landlocked prefecture of Japan in the Kansai region of Honshu. Shiga Prefecture has a population of 1,398,972 as of 1 February 2025 and has a geographic area of . Shiga Prefecture borders Fukui Prefecture to the north, Gifu Prefecture to th ...

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 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 21,411 in 8310 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 940 persons per km². The total area of the town is .

Geography

Aishō is located in east-central Shiga Prefecture in the flatlands of the Ōmi Basin.

Surrounding municipalities

Shiga Prefecture * Hikone *

Higashiōmi is a city located in Shiga Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 113,229 in 45771 households and a population density of 290 persons per km2. The total area of the city is . Geography Higashiōmi is located in east-centr ...

* Kōra * Taga * Toyosato

Climate

Aishō 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 ''Cfa'') characterized by warm summers and cool winters with light to no snowfall. The average annual temperature in Aishō is 12.9 °C. The average annual rainfall is 1810 mm with September as the wettest month. The temperatures are highest on average in August, at around 24.7 °C, and lowest in January, at around 1.3 °C.

Demographics

Per Japanese census data, the population of Aishō has grown slightly over the past 50 years.

History

The area of Aishō was part of ancient

Ōmi Province was a Provinces of Japan, province of Japan, which today comprises Shiga Prefecture. It was one of the provinces that made up the Tōsandō Circuit (subnational entity), circuit. Its nickname is . Under the ''Engishiki'' classification system, ...

. 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 ...

, Echigawa-juku was the 65th 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 centrally administered Edo Five Routes, five routes of the Edo period, and one of the two that connected the ''de facto'' ...

highway connecting

Kyoto Kyoto ( or ; Japanese language, Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in the Kansai region of Japan's largest and most populous island of Honshu. , the city had a population of 1.46 million, making it t ...

with eastern Japan. The village of Echigawa was established on April 1, 1889 with the establishment of the modern municipalities system. It was raised to town status on October 1, 1909 and merged with the neighboring village of Toyokuni in 1955. The town of Aishō was founded on February 13, 2006, when the towns of Echigawa and Hatashō merged. The name "Aishō" combines the first character in and the second character in .

Government

Aishō 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 ...

city council of 14 members. Aishō contributes one member to the Shiga Prefectural Assembly. In terms of national politics, the town is part of Shiga 2nd 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

Agriculture has dominated the local economy since ancient times. Manufacturing includes a number of small to medium-sized food processing and metals processing factories.

Education

Aishō has four public elementary schools and two public middle schools operated by the town government, and one public high school operated by the Shiga Prefectural Board of Education. The prefecture also operates one special education school for the handicapped. ;International schools: * Colégio Sant'Ana - Brazilian schoolEscolas Brasileiras Homologadas no Japão

Archive
. Embassy of Brazil in Tokyo. Retrieved October 13, 2015.

Transportation

Railway

Ohmi Railway – Main Line *

Highway

Meishin Expressway * *

Sister cities

West Bend, Wisconsin West Bend is a city in Washington County, Wisconsin, United States, and its county seat. As of the 2020 census, the population was 31,752. It is part of the Milwaukee metropolitan area. History Early history and settlement Northeastern Washi ...

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

Local attractions

* Kongōrin-ji, a major

Tendai , also known as the Tendai Dharma Flower School (天台法華宗, ''Tendai hokke shū,'' sometimes just ''Hokkeshū''), is a Mahāyāna Buddhist tradition with significant esoteric elements that was officially established in Japan in 806 by t ...

Buddhist temple

Noted people from Aishō

* Yasujirō Tsutsumi, entrepreneur and politician

References

External links

*
Aishō official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Aisho, Shiga Towns in Shiga Prefecture Aisho, Shiga