Yu River view from Karuizawa-ohashi bridge 1

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

Nagano Prefecture is a landlocked prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region of Honshū. Nagano Prefecture has a population of 2,052,493 () and has a geographic area of . Nagano Prefecture borders Niigata Prefecture to the north, Gunma Prefecture to the ...

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 15,562 in 6897 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 260 persons per km². The total area of the town is .

Geography

Miyota is located on the eastern border of Nagano Prefecture with

Gumma Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Gunma Prefecture has a population of 1,937,626 (1 October 2019) and has a geographic area of 6,362 km2 (2,456 sq mi). Gunma Prefecture borders Niigata Prefecture and Fukushima P ...

Mount Asama is an active complex volcano in central Honshū, the main island of Japan. The volcano is the most active on Honshū. The Japan Meteorological Agency classifies Mount Asama as rank A. It stands above sea level on the border of Gunma and Nagano ...

(2568 meters) is within the town's northern borders. The

Citizen Watch is an electronics company primarily known for its watches and is the core company of a Japanese global corporate group based in Nishitokyo, Tokyo, Japan. In addition to Citizen brand watches, it is the parent of American watch company Bulova, an ...

group has other engineering facilities in the adjacent town of

Saku, Nagano is a city located in Nagano Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 99,131 in 41,522 households, and a population density of 230 persons per km². The total area of the city is . Geography Saku is located in east-central ...

Surrounding municipalities

*Nagano Prefecture ** Komoro **

Karuizawa is a resort town located in Nagano Prefecture, Japan. , the town had an estimated population of 20,323 in 9897 households, and a population density of 130 persons per km². The total area of the town is . Karuizawa is one of the oldest and most ...

Saku Saku may refer to: Places *Saku, Nagano, a city in Japan *Saku, Nagano (Minamisaku), a town in Japan *Saku Parish, a rural municipality in Harju County, Estonia **Saku, Estonia, a small borough in Saku Parish, Harju County, Estonia *Saku Constituen ...

** Tsumagoi

Climate

The town 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 ...

characterized by warm and humid summers, and cold winters with heavy snowfall (

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 ...

''Dfb''). The average annual temperature in Miyota is 8.2 °C. The average annual rainfall is 1291 mm with September as the wettest month. The temperatures are highest on average in August, at around 21.1 °C, and lowest in January, at around -4.0 °C.

Demographics

Per Japanese census data,Miyota population statistics
/ref> the population of Miyota has nearly doubled over the past 60 years.

History

The area of present-day Miyota was part of ancient

Shinano Province or is an old province of Japan that is now Nagano Prefecture. Shinano bordered on Echigo, Etchū, Hida, Kai, Kōzuke, Mikawa, Mino, Musashi, Suruga, and Tōtōmi Provinces. The ancient capital was located near modern-day Matsumoto, whi ...

, and was the site of the

Battle of Odaihara The 1547 Battle of Odaihara was one of a series of battles waged by Takeda Shingen in his long campaign to conquer Shinano province. In this particular encounter he was fighting the forces of Uesugi Norimasa, who was based in Echigo province but ...

during 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 ...

. As

Otai-shuku was the twenty-first of the sixty-nine stations of the Nakasendō. It is located in the present-day town of Miyota, in the Kitasaku District of Nagano Prefecture, Japan. History Otai-shuku originated between 473 and 492 AD and developed into a p ...

, it developed as a post station on the Nakasendo highway connecting Edo 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 ci ...

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 village of Miyota was created with the establishment of the modern municipalities system on April 1, 1889. It merged with the villages of Onuma and Goka to form the town of Miyota on September 30, 1956.

Politics and government

Miyota is governed by a town council with 14 members.

Elections

* 2007 Miyota mayoral election

Education

Miyota has two public elementary schools and one public middle school operated by the town government. The town does not have a high school.

Transportation

Railway

Shinano Railway The is a Japanese third-sector railway operating company established in 1996 to operate passenger railway services on the section of the JR East Shinetsu Main Line within Nagano Prefecture when it is separated from the JR East network in Octobe ...

Highway

Local attractions

, post station on the

Nakasendō The , also called the ,Richard Lane, ''Images from the Floating World'' (1978) Chartwell, Secaucus ; pg. 285 was one of the five routes of the Edo period, and one of the two that connected Edo (modern-day Tokyo) to Kyoto in Japan. There were 6 ...

References

External links

*
Official Website
Towns in Nagano Prefecture {{Nagano-geo-stub