is a district located in Kumamoto Prefecture,

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 ...

. As of the Aso and

Yamato was originally the area around today's Sakurai City in Nara Prefecture of Japan, which became Yamato Province and by extension a name for the whole of Japan. Yamato is also the dynastic name of the ruling Imperial House of Japan. Japanese his ...

mergers (but with 2003 population data), the district has an estimated population of 40,841 and a density of 58.1 persons per square kilometer. The total area is 703.01 km².

Towns and villages

* Minamioguni * Oguni * Takamori * Minamiaso *

Nishihara Nishihara (written: 西原) is a Japanese surname. Notable people with the surname include: *Clarence K. Nishihara, American politician *, Japanese film director, screenwriter, producer and actor *, Japanese chemist *, Japanese long-distance runner ...

* Ubuyama

Mergers

*On February 11, 2005 the old town of Aso absorbed the town of Ichinomiya, and the village of Namino to become the new

city A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be def ...

of Aso. *On February 11, 2005 the town of Soyō merged with the town of

Yabe was a village located in Yame District, Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan. Yabe is located at 330m above sea level. The average temperature is 14 °C and the average annual precipitation is 2,706mm. As of 2006, the village had an estimated popula ...

, and the village of Seiwa, both from Kamimashiki District, to form the new town of

(in Kamimashiki District). *On February 13, 2005 the villages of Chōyō, Hakusui and Kugino merged to form the new village of Minamiaso. Districts in Kumamoto Prefecture {{Kumamoto-geo-stub