De rivier de Haya en de Ajisai-brug in Hakone, -23 april 2014

The Haya River ( = Hayakawa, literally a ''fast-flowing river'' ) is a

river A river is a natural flowing watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, sea, lake or another river. In some cases, a river flows into the ground and becomes dry at the end of its course without reaching another body of wate ...

that flows in

Hakone is a town in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. , the town had a population of 11,293 and a population density of 122 persons per km². The total area of the town is . The town is a popular tourist destination due to its many hot springs and views of ...

and

Odawara is a city in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 188,482 and a population density of 1,700 persons per km2. The total area of the city is . Geography Odawara lies in the Ashigara Plains, in the far western por ...

Kanagawa, Japan is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Kanagawa Prefecture is the List of Japanese prefectures by population, second-most populous prefecture of Japan at 9,221,129 (1 April 2022) and third-dens ...

. It is a 26 km long river, starting from the Kojiri Water Gate (湖尻水門) at the northern tip of

Lake Ashi , also referred to as Hakone Lake or Ashinoko Lake, is a scenic lake in the Hakone area of Kanagawa Prefecture in Honshū, Japan. It is a crater lake that lies along the southwest wall of the caldera of Mount Hakone, a complex volcano that last ...

, gathering rain and

hot spring A hot spring, hydrothermal spring, or geothermal spring is a spring produced by the emergence of geothermally heated groundwater onto the surface of the Earth. The groundwater is heated either by shallow bodies of magma (molten rock) or by circ ...

water as it flows in the

Sengoku The was a period in Japanese history of near-constant civil war and social upheaval from 1467 to 1615. The Sengoku period was initiated by the Ōnin War in 1467 which collapsed the feudal system of Japan under the Ashikaga shogunate. Various s ...

, the

Mount Hakone , with its highest peak Mount Kami (1,438 meters), is a complex volcano in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan that is truncated by two overlapping calderas, the largest of which is 10 × 11 km wide. The calderas were formed as a result of ...

caldera A caldera ( ) is a large cauldron-like hollow that forms shortly after the emptying of a magma chamber in a volcano eruption. When large volumes of magma are erupted over a short time, structural support for the rock above the magma chamber is ...

, running down beside the towns of Hakone Hot Springs, and emptying near Odawara Fishing Port () into

Sagami Bay lies south of Kanagawa Prefecture in Honshu, central Japan, contained within the scope of the Miura Peninsula, in Kanagawa, to the east, the Izu Peninsula, in Shizuoka Prefecture, to the west, and the Shōnan coastline to the north, while the ...

of the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...

. Lake Ashi is not the source of the Haya River, because it is drained through the Fukara Water Gate to the , completed in 1676, which leads to

Shizuoka Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region of Honshu. Shizuoka Prefecture has a population of 3,637,998 and has a geographic area of . Shizuoka Prefecture borders Kanagawa Prefecture to the east, Yamanashi Prefecture to the northea ...

. The Sukumo River ( 須雲川) is the Haya's largest

tributary A tributary, or affluent, is a stream or river that flows into a larger stream or main stem (or parent) river or a lake. A tributary does not flow directly into a sea or ocean. Tributaries and the main stem river drain the surrounding drainage ...

. The Chisuji Falls ( 千条の滝) are on another tributary, the Jakotsu River (蛇骨川). The Haya is famous for

ayu fishing Ayu fishing is one of the several narrowly defined styles of fishing in Japan. Ayu fishing was practiced by Samurai as long as 430 years ago. It uses very long rods (7–11 meters) and fly, but fly-casting is not required. Ayu fishing originat ...

in summer, in its midstream. A section of the Haya near

Hakone-Yumoto Station is a railway station on the Hakone Tozan Line in Hakone, Kanagawa, Japan. Lines Hakone-Yumoto Station is served by the Hakone Tozan Line from to , although all Hakone Tozan Line trains start from this station, and only Odakyu services operate ...

Odakyu Group The is a group of companies centered around the Odakyu Electric Railway company which is based in Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan. The group originated as a rail transport operator, but now also has diverse operations such as in real estate, retail, B2B, ...

Hakone Tozan Line The is a mountain railway in Japan operated by the Hakone Tozan Railway. The company belongs to the Odakyu Group, which also owns the Hakone Tozan Cable Car. The section of the line from Odawara Station to Hakone-Yumoto Station began operati ...

is known as a place where one can observe

fireflies The Lampyridae are a family (biology), family of Elateroidea, elateroid beetles with more than 2,000 described species, many of which are bioluminescence, light-emitting. They are soft-bodied beetles commonly called fireflies, lightning bugs, ...

in each

June June is the sixth month of the year in the Julian and Gregorian calendars and is the second of four months to have a length of 30 days, and the third of five months to have a length of less than 31 days. June contains the summer solstice in ...

. The Old Tokaido Highway runs alongside the Hayakawa River, from Itabashi, Odawara, to Miyanoshita, Hakone. The 2,900 kW Hayakawa Hydroelectric Station is on this river.早川発電所 (Kanagawa Prefectural Government)
in Japanese

References

External link

{{Commonscat, Haya River
Haya River (Encyclopedia Nipponica)
in Japanese Rivers of Kanagawa Prefecture Hakone, Kanagawa Odawara

See also

References

External link