is a two kilometer long

ravine A ravine is a landform that is narrower than a canyon and is often the product of streambank erosion.Ichinoseki is a city located in Iwate Prefecture, in the Tōhoku region of northern Japan. , the city had a population of 114,476 and a population density of 91 persons per km² in 46,375 households. It is currently the second largest city by population in ...

Iwate Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Tōhoku region of Honshu. It is the second-largest Japanese prefecture at , with a population of 1,210,534 (as of October 1, 2020). Iwate Prefecture borders Aomori Prefecture to the north, Akita Prefectur ...

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 ...

. It has been designated a National Place of Scenic Beauty and

Natural Monument A natural monument is a natural or natural/cultural feature of outstanding or unique value because of its inherent rarity, representative of aesthetic qualities or cultural significance. Under World Commission on Protected Areas guidelines, nat ...

since 1927.

Overview

Genbeikei is in the Kurikoma Mountains in southwestern Iwate, and has been popular as a scenic spot since at least the early

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 first ''

daimyō were powerful Japanese magnates, feudal lords who, from the 10th century to the early Meiji era, Meiji period in the middle 19th century, ruled most of Japan from their vast, hereditary land holdings. They were subordinate to the shogun and n ...

'' of

Sendai Domain The , also known as the , was a domain of the Tokugawa Shogunate of Japan during the Edo period from 1600 to 1871. The Sendai Domain was based at Aoba Castle in Mutsu Province, in the modern city of Sendai, located in the Tōhoku region of the i ...

Date Masamune was a regional ruler of Japan's Azuchi–Momoyama period through early Edo period. Heir to a long line of powerful ''daimyō'' in the Tōhoku region, he went on to found the modern-day city of Sendai. An outstanding tactician, he was made all ...

, praised this area for its scenic beauty. In August 1877,

Emperor Meiji , also called or , was the 122nd emperor of Japan according to the traditional order of succession. Reigning from 13 February 1867 to his death, he was the first monarch of the Empire of Japan and presided over the Meiji era. He was the figur ...

visited the ravine on his travels through the

Tōhoku region The , Northeast region, or consists of the northeastern portion of Honshu, the largest island of Japan. This traditional region consists of six prefectures (''ken''): Akita, Aomori, Fukushima, Iwate, Miyagi, and Yamagata. Tōhoku retains a ...

, and subsequently

Kōda Rohan , pen name , was a Japanese author. His daughter, Aya Kōda, was also a noted author who often wrote about him. Kōda wrote "The Icon of Liberty", also known as "The Buddha of Art" or "The Elegant Buddha", in 1889. A house (Kagyu-an or "snail ...

wrote a travelogue which drew many visitors to the area. Geologically, the ravine was formed by erosion of a thick seam of

dacite Dacite () is a volcanic rock formed by rapid solidification of lava that is high in silica and low in alkali metal oxides. It has a fine-grained (aphanitic) to porphyritic texture and is intermediate in composition between andesite and rhyolite. ...

tuff Tuff is a type of rock made of volcanic ash ejected from a vent during a volcanic eruption. Following ejection and deposition, the ash is lithified into a solid rock. Rock that contains greater than 75% ash is considered tuff, while rock cont ...

deposited by eruptions of Mount Kurikoma. The erosion has produced strange rock shapes, waterfalls, rapids and the formation of potholes on the river bottom. The ravine can be reached by a bus service from

Ichinoseki Station is a junction railway station in the city of Ichinoseki, Iwate, Japan, operated by East Japan Railway Company (JR East). Lines Ichinoseki Station is served by the Tōhoku Shinkansen, Tōhoku Main Line and is a terminal station for the Ōfunato ...

on the Tohoku Shinkansen.

Gallery

File:Genbi-kei.jpg, File:Genbikei.JPG, File:厳美公園 - panoramio.jpg,

References

External links

*
Iwate Prefecture tourist informationJapan Travel website
Landforms of Iwate Prefecture Places of Scenic Beauty Natural monuments of Japan Canyons and gorges of Japan Tourist attractions in Iwate Prefecture Ichinoseki, Iwate IUCN Category III {{Iwate-geo-stub

Overview

Gallery

See also

References

External links