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 ...

in Yamagata District, Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan. , 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 17,333 in 8333 households and a

population density Population density (in agriculture: Stock (disambiguation), 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 ...

of . The total area of the town is .

Geography

Kitahiroshima is in the

Chūgoku Mountains is a mountain range in the Chūgoku region of western Japan. It runs in an east–west direction and stretches approximately from Hyōgo Prefecture in the east to the coast of Yamaguchi Prefecture. The range also reaches under the Pacific Ocean ...

of north-central Hiroshima, bordered by Shimane Prefecture to the north. Due to its location and elevation, it is a heavy snowfall region.

Adjoining municipalities

Hiroshima Prefecture * Hiroshima * Akitakata * Akiōta Shimane Prefecture * Masuda *

Hamada A hamada ( ar, حمادة, ) is a type of desert landscape consisting of high, largely barren, hard rocky plateaus, where most of the sand has been removed by deflation. The majority of the Sahara is in fact hamada. Other examples are Negev dese ...

* Ōnan

Climate

Kitahiroshima has a humid subtropical 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'') characterized by cold winters and hot, humid summers. The average annual temperature in Kitahiroshima is . The average annual rainfall is with July as the wettest month. The temperatures are highest on average in August, at around , and lowest in January, at around . The highest temperature ever recorded in Kitahiroshima was on 15 July 2018; the coldest temperature ever recorded was on 28 February 1981.

Demographics

Per Japanese census data, the population of Kitahiroshima in 2020 is 17,763 people. Kitahiroshima has been conducting censuses since 1920.

History

The area of Kitahiroshima was part of an ancient

Aki Province or Geishū () was a province in the Chūgoku Region of western Honshū, comprising the western part of what is today Hiroshima Prefecture. History When Emperor Shōmu ordered two official temples for each province (one for male Buddhist p ...

, and was part of the holdings of

Hiroshima Domain The was a domain of the Tokugawa Shogunate of Japan during the Edo period from 1601 to 1871. The Hiroshima Domain was based at Hiroshima Castle in Aki Province, in the modern city of Hiroshima, located in the Chūgoku region of the island of H ...

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 characte ...

. Following 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 ...

, the area was organized into villages within

Yamagata District, Hiroshima is a district located in northwestern Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan. As of 2003, the district has an estimated population of 29,978 and a density of 30.34 persons per km2. The total area is 988.11 km2. Towns and villages * Akiōta: founded ...

with the creation of the modern municipalities system on April 1, 1889. Kitahiroshima was formed on February 1, 2005, from the merger of the towns of Chiyoda, Geihoku, Ōasa and Toyohira, all from Yamagata District.

Government

Kitahiroshima has a mayor-council form of government with a directly elected mayor and a

unicameral Unicameralism (from ''uni''- "one" + Latin ''camera'' "chamber") is a type of legislature, which consists of one house or assembly, that legislates and votes as one. Unicameral legislatures exist when there is no widely perceived need for multi ...

town council of 12 members. Kitahiroshima contributes one member to the Hiroshima Prefectural Assembly. In terms of national politics, the town is part of the Hiroshima 3rd district of the lower house of the Diet of Japan.

Economy

The economy of Kitahiroshima is largely based on agriculture and forestry, with seasonal tourism to its ski resorts.

Education

Kitahiroshima has nine public elementary schools and four public junior high schools operated by the town government, and two public high schools operated by the Hiroshima Prefectural Board of Education. there is also one private middle school and one private high school.

Transportation

Railway

Kitahiroshima does not have any passenger railway service. The nearest train station is Kabe Station on the

JR West , also referred to as , is one of the Japan Railways Group (JR Group) companies and operates in western Honshu. It has its headquarters in Kita-ku, Osaka. It is listed in the Tokyo Stock Exchange, is a constituent of the TOPIX Large70 index, an ...

Kabe Line The is a railway line operated by West Japan Railway Company (JR West) within the city of Hiroshima in Japan. It connects Hiroshima Station and Aki-Kameyama Station in Asakita-ku. The actual junction station is Yokogawa. It is one of the com ...

Asakita-ku, Hiroshima is one of the eight wards of the city of Hiroshima. The northern portion contains what was Asa-gun and southern Takata-gun, now defunct districts (see Takata District, Hiroshima). Asa-gun consisted of Kabe-cho, Kōyō-cho, Asa-cho. Takata ...

Highways

Chūgoku Expressway * JP Expressway E74

Hamada Expressway * * * * *

References

External links

* Towns in Hiroshima Prefecture Kitahiroshima, Hiroshima {{Hiroshima-geo-stub