270px, Kawazu Town Hall 270px, Kawazu sakura 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 on the east coast of

Izu Peninsula The is a large mountainous peninsula with a deeply indented coastline to the west of Tokyo on the Pacific coast of the island of Honshu, Japan. Formerly known as Izu Province, Izu peninsula is now a part of Shizuoka Prefecture. The peninsul ...

in Kamo District,

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 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 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 7,203 in 3334 households, 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 71 persons per km². The total area of the town is . The town is noted for its ''Kawazu sakura'', a variety of early-blooming

sakura A cherry blossom, also known as Japanese cherry or sakura, is a flower of many trees of Prunus, genus ''Prunus'' or Prunus subg. Cerasus, ''Prunus'' subg. ''Cerasus''. They are common species in East Asia, including China, Korea and especia ...

Geography

Kawazu occupies a portion of the eastern coastline of

, facing

Sagami Bay lies south of Kanagawa Prefecture in Honshu, central Japan, contained within the scope of the Miura Peninsula, in Kanagawa, to the east, the Izu Peninsula, in Shizuoka Prefecture, to the west, and the Shōnan coastline to the north, while the ...

and the

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 continen ...

. It is bordered to the west by the Amagi Mountains. The town has a temperate maritime climate characterized by hot summers and short cool winters, with the weather moderated by the effects of the warm

Kuroshio The , also known as the Black or or the is a north-flowing, warm ocean current on the west side of the North Pacific Ocean basin. It was named for the deep blue appearance of its waters. Similar to the Gulf Stream in the North Atlantic, the K ...

current offshore. Parts of the town are within the limits of the

Fuji-Hakone-Izu National Park is a national park in Yamanashi, Shizuoka, and Kanagawa Prefectures, and western Tokyo Metropolis, Japan. It consists of Mount Fuji, Fuji Five Lakes, Hakone, the Izu Peninsula, and the Izu Islands. Fuji-Hakone-Izu National Park covers . Rather ...

. The area is noted for a large number of

hot springs A hot spring, hydrothermal spring, or geothermal spring is a spring produced by the emergence of geothermally heated groundwater onto the surface of the Earth. The groundwater is heated either by shallow bodies of magma (molten rock) or by circ ...

Neighbouring municipalities

Shizuoka Prefecture * Shimoda * Nishiizu * Matsuzaki *

Ito Ito may refer to: Places * Ito Island, an island of Milne Bay Province, Papua New Guinea * Ito Airport, an airport in the Democratic Republic of the Congo * Ito District, Wakayama, a district located in Wakayama Prefecture, Japan * Itō, Shizuo ...

* Higashiizu

Demographics

Per Japanese census data, the population of Kawazu has been in slow decline over the past 50 years.

Climate

The city has a climate 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, notabl ...

''Cfa''). The average annual temperature in Kawazu is 16.3 °C. The average annual rainfall is 2134 mm with September as the wettest month. The temperatures are highest on average in August, at around 26.3 °C, and lowest in January, at around 7.3 °C.Kawazu climate data
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History

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 characteriz ...

, the area around Kawazu was ''

tenryō The Tokugawa shogunate (, Japanese 徳川幕府 ''Tokugawa bakufu''), also known as the , was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005)"''Tokugawa-jidai''"in ''Japan Encyclopedia ...

'' territory controlled 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 during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005)"''Tokugawa-jidai''"in ''Japan Encyclopedia ...

or various ''

hatamoto A was a high ranking samurai in the direct service of the Tokugawa shogunate of feudal Japan. While all three of the shogunates in Japanese history had official retainers, in the two preceding ones, they were referred to as ''gokenin.'' However ...

''. With the establishment of the modern municipalities system in 1889, the village of Kawazu was created, along with Kamikawazu and Shimokawazu, through the merger of 15 small hamlets within Kamo District. The town of Kawazu was created through the merger of the villages of Kamikazu and Shimokawazu in September 1958. Around March 31, 2010, the city of Shimoda and three municipalities in Kamo District (Kawazu, Matsuzaki, and

Minamiizu is a List of towns in Japan, town located at the southern tip of Izu Peninsula in Kamo District, Shizuoka, Kamo District, Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan. , the town had an estimated population of 8,231 in 3895 households, and a population density o ...

) were scheduled to merge. However, the merger backed out.

Economy

The local economy is based on farming and tourism centered on hot spring resorts.

Education

Kawazu has three public elementary schools and one public junior high school operated by the town government. The town does not have a high school.

Transportation

Railway

Izu Kyūkō Line The Izu Kyūkō Line ( ja, 伊豆急行線, ) is a privately owned railway line of the Izukyū Corporation in Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan. The line approximately parallels the eastern coast of the Izu Peninsula, a tourist district noted for its n ...

Imaihama-Kaigan Station is a railway station in the town of Kawazu, Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan, operated by the privately owned Izu Kyūkō Line . Lines Imaihama-Kaigan Station is served by the Izu Kyūkō Line, and is located 34.2 kilometers from the official sta ...

, Kawazu Station

Highway

* *

References

External links

Kawazu official website
(Japanese) * {{Authority control Towns in Shizuoka Prefecture Populated coastal places in Japan