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

Fukushima Prefecture Fukushima Prefecture (; ja, 福島県, Fukushima-ken, ) is a prefecture of Japan located in the Tōhoku region of Honshu. Fukushima Prefecture has a population of 1,810,286 () and has a geographic area of . Fukushima Prefecture borders Miya ...

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 17,471 in 6348 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 240 persons per km². The total area of the town was .

Geography

Miharu is located in Tamura District in north-central Fukushima prefecture. The town is located in an hilly region of the Abukuma Mountains, with peaks of 300–500 meters. *Lakes:

Miharu Dam is a concrete gravity dam on the Ōtakine River, a branch of the Abukuma River in the town of Miharu, Fukushima in the Tōhoku region of Japan. The dam was completed in 1997. Geography The Miharu Dam is a multipurpose dam directly controlled ...

Neighboring municipalities

* Fukushima Prefecture **

Kōriyama is a city in Fukushima Prefecture, Japan. , the city has an estimated population of 322,996 people in 141760 households, and a population density of 430 persons per km2. The total area of the city is . Kōriyama is designated as a core city and ...

Tamura Tamura (usually written 田村), a Japanese placename and family name, may refer to: In places: *Tamura, Fukushima, a city in Japan *Tamura District, Fukushima, in Japan * Tamura Station, in Nagahama, Japan People with the surname Tamura: * Tamura ...

Nihonmatsu is a city in Fukushima Prefecture, Japan. , the city has an estimated population of 54,013 in 20,179 households, and a population density of 160 persons per km2. The total area of the city was . The Adachi neighborhood of Nihonmatsu was the bir ...

** Motomiya

Demographics

Per Japanese census data, the population of Miharu has declined modestly from 1960 levels.

Climate

Miharu has a

humid continental climate A humid continental climate is a climatic region defined by Russo-German climatologist Wladimir Köppen in 1900, typified by four distinct seasons and large seasonal temperature differences, with warm to hot (and often humid) summers and freezing ...

(Köppen ''Cfa'') characterized by mild summers and cold winters with heavy snowfall. The average annual temperature in Miharu is 11.3 °C. The average annual rainfall is 1282 mm with September as the wettest month. The temperatures are highest on average in August, at around 24.2 °C, and lowest in January, at around -0.3 °C.Miharu climate data
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History

The area of present-day Miharu was part of ancient

Mutsu Province was an old province of Japan in the area of Fukushima, Miyagi, Iwate and Aomori Prefectures and the municipalities of Kazuno and Kosaka in Akita Prefecture. Mutsu Province is also known as or . The term is often used to refer to the comb ...

. 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 was the

castle town A castle town is a settlement built adjacent to or surrounding a castle. Castle towns were common in Medieval Europe. Some examples include small towns like Alnwick and Arundel, which are still dominated by their castles. In Western Europe, ...

Miharu Domain was a feudal domain under the Tokugawa shogunate of Edo period Japan. Papinot, Jacques Edmond Joseph. (1906). ''Dictionnaire d'histoire et de géographie du Japon''; Papinot, (2003). It was based at Miharu Castle in southern Mutsu Province in w ...

, a 50,000 ''

koku The is a Chinese-based Japanese unit of volume. 1 koku is equivalent to 10 or approximately , or about . It converts, in turn, to 100 shō and 1000 gō. One ''gō'' is the volume of the "rice cup", the plastic measuring cup that is supplied ...

han Han may refer to: Ethnic groups * Han Chinese, or Han People (): the name for the largest ethnic group in China, which also constitutes the world's largest ethnic group. ** Han Taiwanese (): the name for the ethnic group of the Taiwanese p ...

ruled by the Akita clan from 1645 until 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 ...

. It was subsequently organized as part of

Nakadōri is a region comprising the middle third of Fukushima Prefecture, Japan. It is sandwiched between the regions of Aizu to the west and Hamadōri to the east. The principal cities of the area are Kōriyama and the prefecture's capital, Fukushima ...

region of Iwaki Province. Miharu town was established with the formation of the modern municipalities system on April 1, 1889. On April 1, 1955, Miharu annexed the neighboring villages of Ogisawa, Nakazuma, Nakago, Sawaishi and Kurita, all from Tamura District.

Economy

The economy of Miharu is primarily agricultural, with some chemical and light manufacturing.

Education

Miharu has six public elementary schools and one public junior high school operated by the town government, and one public high school operated by the Fukushima Board of Education. *Fukushima Prefectural Tamura High School

Transportation

Railway

JR East The is a major passenger railway company in Japan and is the largest of the seven Japan Railways Group companies. The company name is officially abbreviated as JR-EAST or JR East in English, and as in Japanese. The company's headquarters are ...

- Ban'etsu East Line *

Highway

Ban-etsu Expressway The is a national expressway in the Tōhoku region of Japan. It is owned and operated by East Nippon Expressway Company. Naming The name is a kanji acronym consisting of characters found in the former names of the provinces linked by the expr ...

International relations

* - Sister city to

Rice Lake, Wisconsin Rice Lake is a city in Barron County, Wisconsin, United States. As of the 2020 census, the city had a total population of 9,040. The city is located mostly within the Town of Rice Lake. History Rice Lake was named in 1870 after nearby Rice Lake ...

, United States, since August 21, 1987. Sister city relationship was spearheaded by Phyllis and Jeana Schieffer. Jeana was employed by the Miharu Board of Education from 1986 to 1989 as an assistant English teacher and still resides in Miharu today.

Noted people from Miharu

Kōno Hironaka was a politician and cabinet minister in the Empire of Japan. Biography Kōno was a native of Mutsu Province (modern-day Fukushima Prefecture), where his father, Iwamura Hidetoshi, was a samurai in the service of Miharu Domain, who supplemen ...

, politician *

Junko Tabei was a Japanese mountaineer, author and a teacher. She was the first woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest and the first woman to ascend the Seven Summits, climbing the highest peak on every continent. Tabei wrote seven books, organized e ...

, mountaineer

Local attractions

*Takizakura Park - The name "Miharu" in Japanese means three springs. In most parts of Japan, plum, peach, and cherry trees blossom at different times, but in Miharu, they blossom almost simultaneously. Miharu is home of the Takizakura, or "waterfall cherry tree", is over 1,000 years old and brings tourists from all over Japan to see it in the springtime. It is registered as a living national treasure by the Japanese government. *Site of

Miharu Castle is a hilltop-style Japanese castle located in the town of Miharu, Tamura District, Fukushima Prefecture, in the southern Tōhoku region of Japan. It also called Maizuru Castle (舞鶴城). Built in 1543, the castle and its surrounding land is m ...