is a town located 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 ...

. , the town had an estimated population of 15,580, and a population density of 87 persons per km² in 6,155 households. The total area of the town is . In June 2001, the 34.8 hectare old centre of town was protected as an Important Preservation District by the national government for its traditional samurai residences.

Geography

Kanegasaki is located in the Tōhoku region of northern Japan at the confluence of the Kitakami and Isawa rivers and is bordered to the north by Kitakami-shi, to the east and south by Ōshū-shi. In the mountains to the west, there is a large reservoir known as Sengaishi that is dammed and used for irrigating the rice paddies in the plain below. Kanegasaki is characterized by a variety of geographical features, including mountains and wide expanses of rice paddies to the west and a small merchant district and neighboring residential areas to the east. On the border of Kanegasaki and Esashi two neighborhoods (Jōnai and Suwa-kōji) were once the location of the border between the Nambu and Date domains, and several examples of gardens and houses from the Edo period that were residences of samurai prior to the 1868 Meiji Restoration remain.

Neighboring municipalities

Iwate Prefecture * Kitakami * Ōshū

Climate

Kanegasaki has a humid climate ( Köppen climate classification ''Cfa'') bordering with warm summers and cold winters. The average annual temperature in Kanegasaki is 10.3 °C. The average annual rainfall is 1323 mm with September as the wettest month and January as the driest month. The temperatures are highest on average in August, at around 24.1 °C, and lowest in January, at around -2.7 °C.

Demographics

Per Japanese census data, the population of Kanegasaki has remained relatively stable over the past 70 years.

History

The area of present-day Kanegasaki 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 ...

, and has been settled since at least the

Jōmon period The is the time in Japanese history, traditionally dated between 6,000–300 BCE, during which Japan was inhabited by a diverse hunter-gatherer and early agriculturalist population united through a common Jōmon culture, which reached a c ...

by the

Emishi The (also called Ebisu and Ezo), written with Chinese characters that literally mean "shrimp barbarians," constituted an ancient ethnic group of people who lived in parts of Honshū, especially in the Tōhoku region, referred to as in contemp ...

people. During the later portion of the Heian period, the area was ruled by the

Northern Fujiwara The Northern Fujiwara (奥州藤原氏 ''Ōshū Fujiwara-shi'') were a Japanese noble family that ruled the Tōhoku region (the northeast of Honshū) of Japan during the 12th century as their own realm.

. During the Sengoku period, the area was contested by various samurai clans before coming under the control of the Date clan of Sendai Domain during the Edo period, under the Tokugawa shogunate. The village of Kanegasaki was founded on April 1, 1889, with the establishment of the modern municipalities system. It was raised to town status on September 1, 1925. On March 1, 1955 Kanegasaki absorbed the neighboring village of Nagaoka, also from Isawa District.

Government

Kanegasaki has a mayor-council form of government with a directly elected mayor and a unicameral town council of 16 members. Kanegasaki, together with the city of Ōshū contributes five seats to the Iwate Prefectural legislature. In terms of national politics, the town is part of Iwate 3rd district of the

lower house A lower house is one of two Debate chamber, chambers of a Bicameralism, bicameral legislature, the other chamber being the upper house. Despite its official position "below" the upper house, in many legislatures worldwide, the lower house has co ...

of the

Diet of Japan The is the national legislature of Japan. It is composed of a lower house, called the House of Representatives (, ''Shūgiin''), and an upper house, the House of Councillors (, '' Sangiin''). Both houses are directly elected under a paralle ...

Economy

Kanegasaki has a relatively diverse economy that includes rice paddies typical of the region, but also extensive dairy farms in the western portion of the town and a large industrial park. The industrial park has several different manufacturing facilities, such as a Toyota plant that produces Lexus automobiles ( Kantō Jidōsha) and a

Fujitsu is a Japanese multinational information and communications technology equipment and services corporation, established in 1935 and headquartered in Tokyo. Fujitsu is the world's sixth-largest IT services provider by annual revenue, and the la ...

semiconductor facility.

Education

Kanegasaki has five public elementary schools and one public junior high school operated by the town government and one public high school operated by the Iwate Prefectural Board of Education. In addition, the town is known for having developed a system of Life-Long Learning Centers situated throughout the town that provide educational and other opportunities for the local residents.

Transportation

Railway

East Japan Railway Company 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 ...

(JR East) - Tōhoku Main Line * -

Highway

International relations

Amherst, Massachusetts Amherst () is a New England town, town in Hampshire County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Connecticut River valley. As of the 2020 census, the population was 39,263, making it the highest populated municipality in Hampshire County (althoug ...

, United States (since August 1993) *

Changchun Changchun (, ; ), also romanized as Ch'angch'un, is the capital and largest city of Jilin Province, People's Republic of China. Lying in the center of the Songliao Plain, Changchun is administered as a , comprising 7 districts, 1 county and 3 c ...

, People's Republic of China (since February 1989) * Leinefelde-Worbis, Germany (since September 2002)

Local attractions

Tonomi Palisade was an early Heian period ''jōsaku''-style Japanese castle located in what is now the town of Kanegasaki, Iwate, Kanegasaki in Isawa District, Iwate, Isawa District, Iwate Prefecture in far northern Honshū, Japan. The site was proclaimed a List ...

Site, ruins of a late Nara-period fortification, National Historic Monument *

Nanbu-Date border mounds The are a series of earth mounds constructed in the early Edo period to mark the border between the Han system, feudal domains of Morioka Domain (Nanbu clan, i.e. “Nanbu territory”) and Sendai Domain (i.e. Date clan, i.e. “Date territory”) ...

, Edo-period border markers between Morioka Domain and Sendai Domain, a National Historic Site