270px, downtown Ishikawa is a

town A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world. Origin and use The word "town" shares an ori ...

located in

Fukushima Prefecture Fukushima Prefecture (; ja, 福島県, Fukushima-ken, ) is a prefecture of Japan located in the Tōhoku region of Honshu. Fukushima Prefecture has a population of 1,810,286 () and has a geographic area of . Fukushima Prefecture borders Miya ...

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 ...

. , the town had an estimated

population Population typically refers to the number of people in a single area, whether it be a city or town, region, country, continent, or the world. Governments typically quantify the size of the resident population within their jurisdiction using a ...

of 15,511 in 5690 households, and a

population density Population density (in agriculture: 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 geographical term.Matt RosenberPopul ...

of 130 persons per km². The total area of the town was .

Geography

Ishikawa is located in south-central Fukushima prefecture. *Rivers: Abukuma River

Neighboring municipalities

* Fukushima Prefecture ** Shirakawa ** Furudono ** Asakawa ** Tamakawa **

Hirata Hirata may refer to: Places *Hirata, Fukushima, former village in Fukushima Prefecture, Japan *Hirata, Gifu, former town in Gifu Prefecture, Japan *Hirata, Shimane, former city in Shimane Prefecture, Japan *Hirata, Yamagata was a town located in ...

** Nakajima ** Yabuki ** Samegawa

Climate

Ishikawa has a humid climate (

Köppen climate classification The Köppen climate classification is one of the most widely used climate classification systems. It was first published by German-Russian climatologist Wladimir Köppen (1846–1940) in 1884, with several later modifications by Köppen, notabl ...

''Cfa''). The average annual temperature in Ishikawa is . The average annual rainfall is with September being the wettest month. The temperatures are highest on average in August, at around , and lowest in January, at around .

Demographics

Per Japanese census data, the population of Ishikawa has been in decline over the past 70 years.

History

The area of present-day Ishikawa was part of ancient

Mutsu Province was an old province of Japan in the area of Fukushima, Miyagi, Iwate and Aomori Prefectures and the municipalities of Kazuno and Kosaka in Akita Prefecture. Mutsu Province is also known as or . The term is often used to refer to the comb ...

. 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 characteriz ...

, the area was '' tenryō'' under the direct control of the

Tokugawa shogunate The Tokugawa shogunate (, Japanese 徳川幕府 ''Tokugawa bakufu''), also known as the , was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005)"''Tokugawa-jidai''"in ''Japan Encyclopedia ...

. After the

Meiji Restoration The , referred to at the time as the , and also known as the Meiji Renovation, Revolution, Regeneration, Reform, or Renewal, was a political event that restored practical imperial rule to Japan in 1868 under Emperor Meiji. Although there were ...

, it was organized as part of Ishikawa District in the Nakadōri region of Iwaki Province. The villages of Ishikawa, Sawada, Nogisawa, Bohata, Nakatani and Yamahashi were formed on April 1, 1889 with the creation of the modern municipalities system. Ishikawa was promoted to town status on March 27, 1894. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, the town had a secret

uranium mine Uranium mining is the process of extraction of uranium ore from the ground. Over 50 thousand tons of uranium were produced in 2019. Kazakhstan, Canada, and Australia were the top three uranium producers, respectively, and together account f ...

for the

Japanese atomic bomb Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

project.Ishikawa journal, Martin Fackler, ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' website Sept 5 2011 The town expanded by annexing the neighboring villages of Sawada, Nogisawa, Bohata, Nakatani and Yamahashi on March 31, 1955.

Economy

The economy of Ishikawa is primarily based on agriculture.

Education

Ishikawa has three public elementary schools and one public junior high school operated by the town government, and one public high school operated by the Fukushima Prefectural Board of Education. There is also one private junior high school and one private high school. *Fukushima Prefectural Ishikawa High School *Ishikawa High School *Ishikawa Middle School *Ishikawa Sawada Middle School *Ishikawa Gijuku Middle School *Ishikawa Elementary School *Ishikawa Sawada Elementary School *Ishikawa Nogisawa Elementary School *Ishikawa Bobata Elementary School *Ishikawa Nakatani No. 1 Elementary School *Ishikawa Nakatani No. 2 Elementary School *Ishikawa Yamagata Elementary School *Ishikawa Minami-Yamagata Elementary School

Transportation

Railway

JR East The is a major passenger railway company in Japan and is the largest of the seven Japan Railways Group companies. The company name is officially abbreviated as JR-EAST or JR East in English, and as in Japanese. The company's headquarters are ...

– Suigun Line * -

Highway

* *

Local attractions

*Bobata Onsen *Nekonaki Onsen *Katakura Onsen

References

External links

* {{Authority control Towns in Fukushima Prefecture