270px, Eiraku Dam in theOkuyama-Ameyama Nature Park 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 Sen'nan District, Osaka 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 43,154 in 18377 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 2500 persons per km². The total area of the town is .

Geography

Kumatori is located 30 kilometers from central

Osaka is a designated city in the Kansai region of Honshu in Japan. It is the capital of and most populous city in Osaka Prefecture, and the third most populous city in Japan, following Special wards of Tokyo and Yokohama. With a population of ...

, in the southern part of Osaka Prefecture, east of Izumisano City, where

Kansai International Airport Kansai International Airport ( ja, 関西国際空港, Kansai Kokusai Kūkō) commonly known as is the primary international airport in the Greater Osaka Area of Japan and the closest international airport to the cities of Osaka, Kyoto, and ...

is located. The town is roughly in the shape of a leaf, about 4.8 kilometers east-west and 7.8 kilometers north-south. The eastern part is the foothills of the Izumi Mountains, and the ground is gradually lower from the southeast toward the northwest. The Mide, Uyama, and Sumiyoshi rivers that originate in the Izumi Mountains flow through the central part of the town towards

Osaka Bay Osaka Bay (大阪湾 ''Ōsaka-wan'' ) is a bay in western Japan. As an eastern part of the Seto Inland Sea, it is separated from the Pacific Ocean by the Kii Channel and from the neighbor western part of the Inland Sea by the Akashi Strait. ...

Neighboring municipalities

Izumisano Izumisano ( ja, 泉佐野市, Latn, ja, Izumisano-shi, ) is a city located in Osaka Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 98,840 in 47658 households and a population density of 1700 persons per km². The total area of the c ...

* Kaizuka

Climate

Kumatori has a Humid subtropical climate (Köppen ''Cfa'') characterized by warm summers and cool winters with light to no snowfall. The average annual temperature in Kumatori is . The average annual rainfall is with June as the wettest month. The temperatures are highest on average in August, at around , and lowest in January, at around .

Demographics

Per Japanese census data,Kumatori population statistics
/ref> the population of Kumatori has been increasing over the past century.

History

The area of the modern town of Kumatori was within ancient

Izumi Province :''The characters ''泉州'' are also used for the name of the Chinese city of Quanzhou''. was a province of Japan in the area of southern Osaka Prefecture. Tango bordered on Kii to the south, Yamato and Kawachi to the west, and Settsu to ...

. As a place name, "Kumatori" appears in the ancient ''

Nihon Kōki is an officially commissioned Japanese history text. Completed in 840, it is the third volume in the Six National Histories. It covers the years 792–833. Background Following the earlier national history ''Shoku Nihongi'' (797), in 819 Empero ...

'' as a place where

Emperor Kanmu , or Kammu, was the 50th emperor of Japan, Imperial Household Agency (''Kunaichō'') 桓武天皇 (50) retrieved 2013-8-22. according to the traditional order of succession. Kanmu reigned from 781 to 806, and it was during his reign that the sco ...

went hunting in 804 AD. In the

Kamakura period The is a period of Japanese history that marks the governance by the Kamakura shogunate, officially established in 1192 in Kamakura by the first ''shōgun'' Minamoto no Yoritomo after the conclusion of the Genpei War, which saw the struggle bet ...

, the area was part of a

landed estate In real estate, a landed property or landed estate is a property that generates income for the owner (typically a member of the gentry) without the owner having to do the actual work of the estate. In medieval Western Europe, there were two compet ...

called "Kumatori-no-shō". 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 ...

, the area was largely under the control of

Kishiwada Domain was a feudal domain under the Tokugawa shogunate of Edo period Japan, located in Izumi Province in what is now the southern portion of modern-day Osaka Prefecture. It was centered around Kishiwada Castle and was controlled by the '' fudai dai ...

. The village Kumatori was established within Hine District with the creation of the modern municipalities system on April 1, 1889. On April 1, 1896, the area became part of

Sennan District, Osaka is a district located in Osaka Prefecture, Japan. As of 2009, the district has an estimated population of 70,631 and a density of 991 persons per km2. The total area is 71.27 km2. At one time Peach Aviation had its head office in a locati ...

. Kumatori was elevated to town status on November 3, 195.1

Government

Kumatori 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 ...

city council of 14 members. Kumatori collectively with the cities of Kaizuka, Sennan, Hannan and the minor municipalities of Sen'nan District contributes two members to the

Osaka Prefectural Assembly The is the legislature of Osaka Prefecture. As in all prefectures, it is elected to four-year terms by single non-transferable vote in multi- and single-member districts and is responsible for enacting and amending prefectural by-laws, approving t ...

. In terms of national politics, the town is part of Osaka 19th district of the lower house of the Diet of Japan.

Economy

Since then

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 ...

, Kumatori has been noted for its production of textiles, notably cotton cloth. Agriculture and horticulture also play major roles in the local economy. In exchange for hosting Kyoto University's Institute for Integrated Radiation and Nuclear Science, the government agreed to make Kumatori Station on the

Hanwa Line The is a commuter rail line in the Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto Metropolitan Area, owned and operated by West Japan Railway Company (JR West). The 61.3 km (38.1 mi) line runs between Osaka and Wakayama, Japan and has a 1.7 km branchline in a southern Os ...

a stop for express trains, which has contributed to large-scale residential land development and a rapid increase in population since 1963.

Education

Universities and colleges

Osaka University of Health and Sport Sciences Osaka University of Health and Sports Sciences is a private university in the town of Kumatori in Osaka Prefecture, Japan. The school was established in 1965. Notable alumni * Nobuko Fujimura, athlete * Siro Fujise, baseball player * Yoshika ...

* Osaka University of Tourism * Kyoto University's Institute for Integrated Radiation and Nuclear Science is located in Kumatori.

Primary and secondary education

Kumatori has five public elementary schools and three public middle schools operated by the town government, and one public combined middle/high school operated by the Osaka Prefectural Board of Education.

Transportation

Railways

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 ...

–

Highways

Local attractions

*Okuyama-Ameyama Nature Park

Sister city relations

Mildura Mildura is a regional city in north-west Victoria, Australia. Located on the Victorian side of the Murray River, Mildura had a population of 34,565 in 2021. When nearby Wentworth, Irymple, Nichols Point and Merbein are included, the area h ...

Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada * Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory * Victoria, Seychelle ...

, Australia

Notable people from Kumatori

Toru Murata is a Japanese professional baseball pitcher for the Bonn Capitals of the German Baseball Bundesliga. He previously played for the Yomiuri Giants and Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters of Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) and for the Cleveland Indians ...

, baseball player * Sei Muroya, football player * Yuhei Nakaushiro, baseball player

References

External links

*
Kumatori official website
Towns in Osaka Prefecture Kumatori, Osaka {{Osaka-geo-stub