The is a long river that flows through

Saitama Prefecture is a landlocked prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Saitama Prefecture has a population of 7,338,536 (1 January 2020) and has a geographic area of 3,797 km2 (1,466 sq mi). Saitama Prefecture borders Tochigi Prefecture a ...

and Tokyo. Its average flow in 2002 was 30m³/s. It originates on

Mount Kobushi is a mountain on the border of Saitama, Yamanashi, and Nagano prefectures in Japan. The mountain is the source of the Arakawa and Shinano Rivers. It is one of the 100 Famous Japanese Mountains is a book written in 1964 by mountaineer a ...

, and empties into

Tokyo Bay is a bay located in the southern Kantō region of Japan, and spans the coasts of Tokyo, Kanagawa Prefecture, and Chiba Prefecture. Tokyo Bay is connected to the Pacific Ocean by the Uraga Channel. The Tokyo Bay region is both the most populous ...

. It has a total

catchment A drainage basin is an area of land where all flowing surface water converges to a single point, such as a river mouth, or flows into another body of water, such as a lake or ocean. A basin is separated from adjacent basins by a perimeter, the ...

area of . The river is one of Tokyo's major sources of

tap water Tap water (also known as faucet water, running water, or municipal water) is water supplied through a tap, a water dispenser valve. In many countries, tap water usually has the quality of drinking water. Tap water is commonly used for drinking, ...

, and together with 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) and has a drainage area of (the largest in Japan). It is nicknamed Bandō Tarō (); ''Bandō'' is an obsolete alias of the Kantō ...

, accounts for around 80% of Tokyo's water supply as of 2018. The

Okubo water purification plant Okubo water purification plant is a prefectural water purification plant located in Sakura-ku, Saitama City, Saitama Prefecture, Japan. The drinking water is supplied to about 3.8 million people in 15 cities and 1 town in the southern and western ...

takes water from the river.

History

Attempts to control flooding of the Arakawa River have been made since the area that is now Tokyo became the de facto capital of Japan during 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 characterize ...

. Following a major flood in 1910 that damaged a large part of central Tokyo, a long drainage canal was constructed between 1911 and 1924. In 1996 an agreement was signed to make it a "sister river" of the

Potomac River The Potomac River () drains the Mid-Atlantic United States, flowing from the Potomac Highlands into Chesapeake Bay. It is long,U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map. Retrieved Augu ...

in the eastern United States. This means that officials and volunteers from both river areas collaborate with each other.

Media

This river is also depicted in many anime such as

Toaru Kagaku no Railgun is a Japanese manga series written by Kazuma Kamachi and illustrated by Motoi Fuyukawa, which began serialization in the April 2007 issue of ASCII Media Works' ''Dengeki Daioh'' magazine. The manga is a spin-off of Kamachi's ''A Certai ...

References

External links

* Rivers of Saitama Prefecture Rivers of Tokyo Rivers of Japan {{Japan-river-stub

History

Media

See also

References

External links