270px, Hebusu Swamp in Kawauchi is a

village A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town (although the word is often used to describe both hamlets and smaller towns), with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to ...

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 village had an official registered

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 1,861, 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 9.5 persons per km². The total area of Kawauchi is . The village was evacuated as a result of the 2011

Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster The was a nuclear accident in 2011 at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Ōkuma, Fukushima, Japan. The proximate cause of the disaster was the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, which occurred on the afternoon of 11 March 2011 and ...

, but in 2014, all restrictions were lifted.

Geography

Kawauchi is located in the Abukuma Plateau of central Fukushima with a mean altitude of between 400 and 500 meters. North of Kawauchi, there is at a substation of Kita–Iwaki powerline, a 500 kV-line already designed for future 1100 kV operation.

Surrounding municipalities

*Fukushima Prefecture ** Iwaki **

Tamura Tamura (usually written 田村), a Japanese placename and family name, may refer to: In places: *Tamura, Fukushima, a city in Japan *Tamura District, Fukushima, in Japan * Tamura Station, in Nagahama, Japan People with the surname Tamura: * Tamura ...

** Tomioka ** Naraha **

Ōkuma Okuma or Ōkuma may refer to: Surname *Ōkuma Shigenobu (大隈重信) (1838 – 1922) 8th and 17th Prime Minister of Japan, founder of Waseda University *Enuka Okuma, Canadian actress of Nigerian descent Other uses *Okuma Corporation, a manufactu ...

Climate

Kawauchi has a

humid continental climate A humid continental climate is a climatic region defined by Russo-German climatologist Wladimir Köppen in 1900, typified by four distinct seasons and large seasonal temperature differences, with warm to hot (and often humid) summers and freezing ...

(Köppen ''Cfa'') characterized by mild summers and cold winters with heavy snowfall. The average annual temperature in Kawauchi is 10.3 °C. The average annual rainfall is 1431 mm with September as the wettest month. The temperatures are highest on average in August, at around 22.5 °C, and lowest in January, at around -0.7 °C.

Demographics

Per Japanese census data, the population of Kawauchi has declined steadily over the past 60 years and is now less than half what it was a century ago.

History

The area of present-day Kawauchi was part of

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 ...

. 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 ...

, on April 1, 1889, the village of Kawauchi was created within Futaba District, Fukushima with the establishment of the modern municipalities system.

2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster

Kawauchi suffered moderate damage from the

2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami The occurred at 14:46 JST (05:46 UTC) on 11 March. The magnitude 9.0–9.1 (M) undersea megathrust earthquake had an epicenter in the Pacific Ocean, east of the Oshika Peninsula of the Tōhoku region, and lasted approximately six minutes ...

. However, the eastern portion of the village is located within the nominal 20-kilometer exclusion zone of the

Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant The is a disabled nuclear power plant located on a site in the towns of Ōkuma and Futaba in Fukushima Prefecture, Japan. The plant suffered major damage from the magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan on March 11, 2011. The ...

, and as a result of wind patterns following the

, the entire population of the village was evacuated by government order by May 2011. A portion of the village was re-opened in March 2012. In August 2014, the government divided the remaining portion of the village into two zones, and projected a lifting of the evacuation order for 275 residents in one of the zones in October. The ambient

radiation In physics, radiation is the emission or transmission of energy in the form of waves or particles through space or through a material medium. This includes: * ''electromagnetic radiation'', such as radio waves, microwaves, infrared, visi ...

dose was lower than that of the surrounding municipalities, and as of 2012, the average exposure dose among residents was reported to be below 1

millisievert The sievert (symbol: SvNot be confused with the sverdrup or the svedberg, two non-SI units that sometimes use the same symbol.) is a unit in the International System of Units (SI) intended to represent the stochastic health risk of ionizing radi ...

per year. By 2017, more than 80% of the villagers had returned, but many were older and the younger generation had a lower return rate than the whole. It was reported that lifestyle-related diseases after the earthquake were increasing with the aging of the population. More than 100 Bq/kg of radioactive cesium has been detected in 76% of wild

mushroom A mushroom or toadstool is the fleshy, spore-bearing fruiting body of a fungus, typically produced above ground, on soil, or on its food source. ''Toadstool'' generally denotes one poisonous to humans. The standard for the name "mushroom" is t ...

s collected between 2016 and 2019.

Economy

The economy of Kawauchi was formerly heavily dependent on agriculture.

Education

Kawauchi had two high schools (one public, one private), one junior high school, one elementary school, and a kindergarten in March 2011. After the evacuation and re-opening of the town both high schools were closed. The junior high school, elementary school, and kindergarten remain open.

Geography

Surrounding municipalities

Climate

Demographics

History

2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster

Economy

Education

Transportation

Railway

Highway

References

External links