270px, Moka Station is a

city A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be def ...

located in

Tochigi Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Tochigi Prefecture has a population of 1,943,886 (1 June 2019) and has a geographic area of 6,408 km2 (2,474 sq mi). Tochigi Prefecture borders Fukushima Prefecture to th ...

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 n ...

. , the city 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 usi ...

of 78,720 in 30203 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 RosenberPopu ...

of 476 persons per km². The total area of the city is . Moka is known for the Mooka Railway, which operates steam locomotives. The train line stretches from Shimodate,

Ibaraki Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Ibaraki Prefecture has a population of 2,871,199 (1 June 2019) and has a geographic area of . Ibaraki Prefecture borders Fukushima Prefecture to the north, Tochigi Prefecture ...

to Motegi, Tochigi Prefecture. The town produces 7,000 tons of strawberries annually. The name of the city is given as "Moka City" per the city's official website; however, the local train station is "Mōka Station", and the direct transliteration of the city name into Hepburn romanization is "Mooka".

Geography

Mooka is located in southeast

. It is located approximately 100 kilometer from Tokyo metropolis and 15 kilometers from the prefectural capital of

Utsunomiya is the prefectural capital city of Tochigi Prefecture in the northern Kantō region of Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 519,223, and a population density of . The total area of the city is . Utsunomiya is famous for its '' gyoza' ...

Surrounding municipalities

* Oyama * Shimotsuke * Haga * Ichikai *

Mashiko 270px, Kiln in Mashiko is a town located in Tochigi Prefecture, Japan. , the town had an estimated population of 21,841 in 7914 households, and a population density of 240 persons per km². The total area of the town is . Mashiko is known for it ...

* Kaminokawa

* Chikusei *

Sakuragawa 260px, Cherry Blossoms of Sakuragawa is a city located in Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 39,072 in 13,721 households and a population density of 217 persons per km². The percentage of the population ag ...

Climate

Mooka 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 freez ...

(Köppen ''Cfa'') characterized by warm summers and cold winters with heavy snowfall. The average annual temperature in Mooka is . The average annual rainfall is with September 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, the population of Mooka has recently plateaued after a long period of growth.

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 character ...

, much of the area was '' tenryō'' territory under direct control of 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''. Towards the end of the Edo Period, the ''

daimyō were powerful Japanese magnates, feudal lords who, from the 10th century to the early Meiji period in the middle 19th century, ruled most of Japan from their vast, hereditary land holdings. They were subordinate to the shogun and nominall ...

'' of Odawara,

Ōkubo Tadazane was the 7th ''daimyō'' of Odawara Domain in Sagami Province, (modern-day Kanagawa Prefecture) in mid-Edo period Japan. His courtesy title was '' Kaga no Kami''. Biography Tadazane was born in Edo in 1782 (some sources state 1778) as the son of ...

attempted to develop waste land with the assistance of

Ninomiya Sontoku , also known as Ninomiya Kinjirō (二宮金次郎), was a Japanese agriculturalist. He lost his parents when he was a boy, but through hard work and diligence, he rebuilt his fallen family at the age of 20. Later, he rebuilt approximately 600 v ...

. The town on Mooka was established within

Tsuga District, Tochigi ''Tsuga'' (, from Japanese (), the name of ''Tsuga sieboldii'') is a genus of conifers in the subfamily Abietoideae of Pinaceae, the pine family. The common name hemlock is derived from a perceived similarity in the smell of its crushed foli ...

on April 1, 1889 with the creation of the modern municipalities system. Mooka annexed the neighboring villages of Yamazeki, Ouchi and Naka on March 31, 1954. It was elevated to city status on October 1, 1954. On March 23, 2009, the town of Ninomiya (from Haga District) was merged into Mooka.

Government

Mooka 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 assembly of 21 members. Mooka collectively contributes two members to the Tochigi Prefectural Assembly. In terms of national politics, the city is part of Tochigi 4th district of the lower house of the

Diet of Japan The is the national legislature of Japan. It is composed of a lower house, called the House of Representatives (, ''Shūgiin''), and an upper house, the House of Councillors (, '' Sangiin''). Both houses are directly elected under a paral ...

Economy

Mooka is a regional commercial center with a mixed economy. Agriculture centers primarily on rice production and fruits. Traditional industries of ''

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 in ...

'' brewing and cotton weaving have largely been replaced by light manufacturing of automotive and electronic components, primarily for the nearby

Nissan , trading as Nissan Motor Corporation and often shortened to Nissan, is a Japanese multinational automobile manufacturer headquartered in Nishi-ku, Yokohama, Japan. The company sells its vehicles under the Nissan, Infiniti, and Datsun bra ...

factory in Kaminokawa and

Honda is a Japanese public multinational conglomerate manufacturer of automobiles, motorcycles, and power equipment, headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. Honda has been the world's largest motorcycle manufacturer since 1959, reaching a producti ...

factory in Tsuga.

Education

Mooka has 14 public

primary school A primary school (in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Australia, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, and South Africa), junior school (in Australia), elementary school or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary e ...

s and nine public

middle school A middle school (also known as intermediate school, junior high school, junior secondary school, or lower secondary school) is an educational stage which exists in some countries, providing education between primary school and secondary school. ...

s operated by the city government. and four

high school A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper seconda ...

s. The city has four public

s operated by the Tochigi Prefectural Board of Education. It previously hosted the Colégio Pitágoras Brasil, a Brazilian school.

Transportation

Railway

Mooka Railway Mooka Line The is a Japanese railway line connecting Shimodate Station, in Chikusei, Ibaraki and Motegi Station in Motegi, Tochigi. It is the only railway line operated by the . The third sector company took over the former JR East line in 1988. In addit ...

** - - - - -

Highway

* – Mooka Interchange * * *

Local attractions

*Osaki Jinja *site of Nakamura Castle

External relations

* –

Douliu Douliu ( Hokkien POJ: ''Táu-la̍k'') is a county-administered city and the county seat of Yunlin County, Taiwan. It is also the political and economic center of the county. Douliu City is served by National Highway No. 3. Name Its former nam ...

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the no ...

* – Glendora,

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

, USA

Noted people

* Takanori Hoshino, voice actor * Nándor Wagner, artist and sculptor

References

External links

Official Website
{{Authority control Cities in Tochigi Prefecture Mooka, Tochigi