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 Nukata District, Aichi Prefecture, in the

Tōkai region The is a subregion of the Chūbu region and Kansai region in Japan that runs along the Pacific Ocean. The name comes from the Tōkaidō, one of the Edo Five Routes. Because Tōkai is a sub-region and is not officially classified, there i ...

of 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 42,200 in 16,198 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 744 persons per km². The total area of the town was . Part of the town was called Kōda until 1954. It should not be confused with a district in the nearby city of Tahara, in the same prefecture, also called Koda (''Koda-chō'')

Geography

Kōta is situated in south-central Aichi Prefecture.

Neighboring municipalities

*Aichi Prefecture ** Okazaki **

Gamagōri is a city in Aichi Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 80,063 in 32,800 households, and a population density of 1,407 persons per km2. The total area of the city is . Geography Gamagōri is situated on the coast of Mik ...

Nishio is a city located in Aichi Prefecture, in the Chūbu region of Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 169,984 in 65,553 households, with a population density of 1,054 persons per km². The total area of the city was . It is a regional ...

Demographics

Per Japanese census data, the population of Kōta has been increasing over the past 70 years.

Climate

The town 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 Kōta is 15.5 °C. The average annual rainfall is 1575 mm with September as the wettest month. The temperatures are highest on average in August, at around 27.5 °C, and lowest in January, at around 4.1 °C.Kōta climate data
/ref>

History

Japanese Paleolithic period remains have been found in what is now Kōta, indicating settlement for many thousands of year. Jōmon period and Kofun period remains are plentiful. The area was part of western

Mikawa Province was an old province in the area that today forms the eastern half of Aichi Prefecture. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "''Mikawa''" in . Its abbreviated form name was . Mikawa bordered on Owari, Mino, Shinano, and Tōtōmi Provinces. Mi ...

under the ''

Ritsuryō , , is the historical law system based on the philosophies of Confucianism and Chinese Legalism in Japan. The political system in accord to Ritsuryō is called "Ritsuryō-sei" (律令制). ''Kyaku'' (格) are amendments of Ritsuryō, ''Shiki'' ...

'' system, and organized into '' shōen'' under the control of

Ise Shrine The , located in Ise, Mie Prefecture of Japan, is a Shinto shrine dedicated to the sun goddess Amaterasu. Officially known simply as , Ise Jingū is a shrine complex composed of many Shinto shrines centered on two main shrines, and . The Inner ...

or the

Fujiwara clan was a powerful family of imperial regents in Japan, descending from the Nakatomi clan and, as legend held, through them their ancestral god Ame-no-Koyane. The Fujiwara prospered since the ancient times and dominated the imperial court until ...

in the

Heian period The is the last division of classical Japanese history, running from 794 to 1185. It followed the Nara period, beginning when the 50th emperor, Emperor Kanmu, moved the capital of Japan to Heian-kyō (modern Kyoto). means "peace" in Japanese ...

. It became a center for the ''

Ikkō-ikki were rebellious or autonomous groups of people that were formed in several regions of Japan in the 15th-16th centuries; backed up by the power of the Jōdo Shinshū sect of Buddhism, they opposed the rule of governors or ''daimyō''. Mainly co ...

'' movement in the

Sengoku period The was a period in History of Japan, Japanese history of near-constant civil war and social upheaval from 1467 to 1615. The Sengoku period was initiated by the Ōnin War in 1467 which collapsed the Feudalism, feudal system of Japan under the ...

. Much of the area was under the control of

Okazaki Domain was a feudal domain of the Tokugawa shogunate in Edo period, Japan located in eastern Mikawa Province (modern-day Aichi Prefecture), Japan. It was centered on Okazaki Castle in what is now the city of Okazaki, Aichi. It was ruled by a number ...

under 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 ...

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 ...

and prospered due to its production of

roof tiles Roof tiles are designed mainly to keep out rain, and are traditionally made from locally available materials such as terracotta or slate. Modern materials such as concrete, metal and plastic are also used and some clay tiles have a waterproof ...

sake Sake, also spelled saké ( ; also referred to as Japanese rice wine), is an alcoholic beverage of Japanese origin made by fermenting rice that has been polished to remove the bran. Despite the name ''Japanese rice wine'', sake, and indee ...

edible oil Cooking oil is plant, animal, or synthetic liquid fat used in frying, baking, and other types of cooking. It is also used in food preparation and flavoring not involving heat, such as salad dressings and bread dips, and may be called edible oil ...

s and its position on the Tōkaidō highway. With 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 ...

establishment of the modern municipalities system, the area was organized into villages within Nukata District, Aichi Prefecture. was formed on May 1, 1906 through the merger of three smaller hamlets. It changed the ''

kanji are the logographic Chinese characters taken from the Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script and used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese ...

'' spelling of its name to the present version on July 28, 1909 with the opening of a train station on the

Tōkaidō Main Line The is a major Japanese railway line of the Japan Railways Group (JR Group) network, connecting and stations. It is long, not counting its many freight feeder lines around the major cities. The high-speed Tōkaidō Shinkansen largely parallel ...

. The village was elevated to town status on April 1, 1952. On August 1, 1954, the town merged with former Toyosaka village from Hazu District, at which time it changed its transliteration from Kōda to Kōta. A new town hall was completed in 1985.

Economy

Kōta is a center for manufacturing of automotive components and electronics, especially for

Toyota is a Japanese multinational automotive manufacturer headquartered in Toyota City, Aichi, Japan. It was founded by Kiichiro Toyoda and incorporated on . Toyota is one of the largest automobile manufacturers in the world, producing about 10 ...

and related companies. One of the more prominent factories in the town is Denso.

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 professiona ...

also has a large R&D and manufacturing complex, Sony Kohda TEC, in Sakazaki district. Agriculture is centered on greenhouse production, with strawberries as a major cash crop.

Education

Kōta has six public elementary schools and three public middle schools operated by the town government, and one public high school operated by the Aichi Prefectural Board of Education.

Transportation

Railway

Central Japan Railway Company -

Highways

* *

Sister city relations

* - Siem Reap,

Cambodia Cambodia (; also Kampuchea ; km, កម្ពុជា, UNGEGN: ), officially the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochinese Peninsula in Southeast Asia, spanning an area of , bordered by Thailan ...

Notable people from Kōta

* Matsudaira Ietada, Sengoku-period daimyō * Natsume Yoshinobu, Sengoku-period samurai

References

External links

* (with link to pages in English) {{DEFAULTSORT:Kota, Aichi Towns in Aichi Prefecture