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

Sorachi Subprefecture is a subprefecture of Hokkaido 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 J ...

Hokkaido is Japan's second largest island and comprises the largest and northernmost prefecture, making up its own region. The Tsugaru Strait separates Hokkaidō from Honshu; the two islands are connected by the undersea railway Seikan Tunnel. The lar ...

, Japan. As of September 2016, the town has 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 3,278. The total area is 39.91 km². There is a microgravity test facility located in Kamisunagawa used for astronomic purposes. Since 1980, Kamisunagawa has been the

sister city A sister city or a twin town relationship is a form of legal or social agreement between two geographically and politically distinct localities for the purpose of promoting cultural and commercial ties. While there are early examples of inter ...

of Sparwood in

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

History

*1949 – Kamisunagawa Town split off from the towns of Sunagawa and

Utashinai is a Cities of Japan, city located in Sorachi Subprefecture, Hokkaido, Japan. It is Japan's smallest city by population. History It was formerly a prosperous coal mining city, but has declined greatly since the closing of the coal mines. The p ...

(partial). *2009 – Kamisunagawa Town, more specifically its microgravity test facility, becomes the namesake of a crater on

25143 Itokawa 25143 Itokawa (provisional designation ) is a sub-kilometer near-Earth object of the Apollo group and a potentially hazardous asteroid. It was discovered by the LINEAR program in 1998 and later named after Japanese rocket engineer Hideo Itokawa ...

, an asteroid visited by Japanese unmanned spacecraft

Hayabusa was a robotic spacecraft developed by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) to return a sample of material from a small near-Earth asteroid named 25143 Itokawa to Earth for further analysis. ''Hayabusa'', formerly known as MUSES-C fo ...

Culture

Mascot

Kamisunagawa's mascot is . He is a shiitake mushroom. His name is unknown but his name come the either "shiitake town", "see town" or "town of shiitake and coal".

Notable people from Kamisunagawa

Junichi Watanabe was a Japanese writer. Biography Jun'ichi Watanabe was born in Kamisunagawa, Hokkaido, Japan. His starting point as a literate was the death of a classmate who was his first love in high school. He published his first works while still studyin ...

, writer *

Ryoko Yamagishi is a Japanese manga artist. She is one of the Year 24 Group, a collection of female artists who innovated (girls') manga throughout the 1970s. Her major works include and '' Terpsichora''. Biography Ryoko Yamagishi was born on September 2 ...

, manga artist *

Ikuro Takahashi Ikuro Takahashi (高橋幾郎 Takahashi Ikuro in Japanese) (born in 1957, Kamisunagawa, Hokkaido) is a drummer and percussionist based in Sapporo, also plays electronic and oscillators. He has been a central member of many groups from the Tokyo ...

, drummer

References

External links

*
Official Website
Towns in Hokkaido {{Hokkaido-geo-stub