is a

city A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be de ...

located in far western

Shizuoka Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region of Honshu. Shizuoka Prefecture has a population of 3,637,998 and has a geographic area of . Shizuoka Prefecture borders Kanagawa Prefecture to the east, Yamanashi Prefecture to the northea ...

, Japan. , the city 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 ...

of 57,885 in 24,232 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 668.7 persons per km². The total area of the city is .

Geography

Kosai is located in the far southwest corner of Shizuoka Prefecture, bordered by Aichi Prefecture to the west, Lake Hamana to the east. The name of the city means "west of the lake", in reference to its location near Lake Hamana. The city is bordered to the south by the Enshū Gulf of

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the contine ...

. Due to its location, the warm Kuroshio Current offshore provides for a temperate maritime climate with hot, humid summers and mild, cool winters.

Neighboring municipalities

Shizuoka Prefecture * Hamamatsu Aichi Prefecture * Toyohashi

Demographics

Per Japanese census data, the population of Kosau has been relatively steady over the past 30 years.

Climate

The city has a climate characterized by characterized by hot and humid summers, and relatively mild winters (

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, nota ...

''Cfa''). The average annual temperature in Kosai is 16.0 °C. The average annual rainfall is 1942 mm with September as the wettest month. The temperatures are highest on average in August, at around 27.3 °C, and lowest in January, at around 5.5 °C.Kosai climate data
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History

The area around Kosai has been noted for the production of Japanese pottery and porcelain since the Kofun period. 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 character ...

, Kosai was '' tenryō'' territory administered directly by the

Tokugawa shogunate The Tokugawa shogunate (, Japanese 徳川幕府 ''Tokugawa bakufu''), also known as the , was the military government of Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in ...

, and the location of a barrier gate regulating traffic on the old Tōkaidō highway connecting

Edo Edo ( ja, , , "bay-entrance" or "estuary"), also romanized as Jedo, Yedo or Yeddo, is the former name of Tokyo. Edo, formerly a ''jōkamachi'' (castle town) centered on Edo Castle located in Musashi Province, became the ''de facto'' capital of ...

with

Kyoto Kyoto (; Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin metropolitan area along with Osaka and Kobe. , the ...

. A post station named Shirasuka-juku developed near the barrier, and this was the forerunner of modern Kosai. During the establishment of the modern municipalities system of the early

Meiji period The is an era of Japanese history that extended from October 23, 1868 to July 30, 1912. The Meiji era was the first half of the Empire of Japan, when the Japanese people moved from being an isolated feudal society at risk of colonization ...

in 1889, the area was reorganized into five villages within Hamana District, Shizuoka. Four of these villages (Washizu, Iride, Shirasuka, Chibata) merged to form the city of Kosai on January 1, 1972. On March 23, 2010, the town of

Arai Automotive Research Association of India (ARAI) is co-operative industrial research association by the automotive industry with the Ministry of Industries, Government Of India The objectives of the Association are Research and Development in auto ...

(from Hamana District) was merged into Kosai. Hamana District was dissolved as a result of this merger.

Government

Kosai has a mayor-council form of government with a directly elected mayor and a unicameral city legislature of 18 members. The city contributes one member to the Shizuoka Prefectural Assembly.

Economy

The economy of Kosai is dominated by light manufacturing of automobile components and electronics, as well as commercial fishing. Kosai is home to

Suzuki Motor Corporation is a Japanese multinational corporation headquartered in Minami-ku, Hamamatsu, Japan. Suzuki manufactures automobiles, motorcycles, all-terrain vehicles (ATVs), outboard marine engines, wheelchairs and a variety of other small internal com ...

's Kosai Assembly Plant, Suzuki's main domestic production plant as well as to plants owned by Panasonic and

Sony , commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional ...

. Commercial fishing and aquaculture on Lake Hamana is also a component of the city's economy.

Education

Kosai has six public elementary schools and five public middle schools operated by the city government. The city has two public high schools operated by the Shizuoka Prefectural Board of Education. The prefecture also operates a special education school for the handicapped. The ENE - Escola Nova Era, a Brazilian international schoolEscolas Brasileiras Homologadas no Japão
"
Archive
. Embassy of Brazil in Tokyo. Retrieved on October 13, 2015. is also located in Kosai. During 1971-1992 a Swedish school was located in Chibata.

Transportation

Railway

Central Japan Railway Company - Tōkaidō Main Line ** - - * Tenryū Hamanako Railroad Tenryū Hamanako Line ** - - -

Highway

* * *

Sister city relations

* Geraldton, Western Australia, Australia, since September 1998 with former Arai town

Local attractions

Arai Barrier The was a security checkpoint which was established by the Tokugawa Shogunate on the Tōkaidō highway connecting the capital of Edo with Kyoto in Edo period Japan. Its official name was the . In 1921, the site was recognized as a National His ...

Museum * Ōchiwatoge temple ruins, a National Historic Site *Toyoda Sakichi Memorial Museum *Honko-ji temple

Notable people from Kosai

* Sakichi Toyoda, founder of Toyota * Yasuji Miyazaki, Olympic gold-medalist swimmer * Shozo Makino, Olympic silver-medalist swimmer

References

External links

* {{Authority control Cities in Shizuoka Prefecture Populated coastal places in Japan