is a

town A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than city, cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world. Origin and use The word "town" shares ...

located in Nagano Prefecture, 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 ...

of 6,088 in 2650 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 32.6 persons per km². The total area of the town is .

Geography

Nagawa is located in the center of Nagano Prefecture.

Surrounding municipalities

*Nagano Prefecture ** Matsumoto ** Ueda ** Suwa ** Chino ** Shimosuwa ** Tateshina

Climate

The town has a climate characterized by characterized by warm and humid summers, and cold, very snowy 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, nota ...

''Dfb''). The average annual temperature in Nagawa is 8.9 °C. The average annual rainfall is 1388 mm with September as the wettest month. The temperatures are highest on average in August, at around 21.9 °C, and lowest in January, at around -3.6 °C.

Demographics

Per Japanese census data,Nagawa population statistics
/ref> the population of Nagawa has declined my more than half over the past 70 years.

History

The area of present-day Nagawa was part of ancient

Shinano Province or is an old province of Japan that is now Nagano Prefecture. Shinano bordered on Echigo Province, Echigo, Etchū Province, Etchū, Hida Province, Hida, Kai Province, Kai, Kōzuke Province, Kōzuke, Mikawa Province, Mikawa, Mino Province, Mi ...

. The area was part of the holdings of Ueda Domain 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 ...

, and had two stations on the Nakasendō highway connecting

Edo Edo ( ja, , , "bay-entrance" or "estuary"), also romanized as Jedo, Yedo or Yeddo, is the former name of Tokyo. Edo, formerly a ''jōkamachi'' (castle town) centered on Edo Castle located in Musashi Province, became the ''de facto'' capital of ...

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 ...

: Nagakubo-shuku and Wada-shuku. The modern town of Nagakubo-shinmachi was established on April 1, 1889 by the establishment of the municipalities system and was renamed Nagato on September 1, 1956. The town of Nagawa was formed by the merger of Nagato with the village of Wada (also from Chiisagata District on October 1, 2005 when the town.

Education

Nagawa has two public elementary schools and one public middle school operated by the town government, and one middle school operated jointly between Nagawa and neighboring Ueda city. The town does not have a high school.

Transportation

Railway

The town does not have any passenger railway service.

Highway

* * *

Local attractions

Hoshikuso Pass obsidian mine site The is an archaeological site consisting shallow pits from which obsidian had been mined during the Jōmon period. It is located in the Daimon neighborhood of the town of Nagawa, Nagano, Nagawa in the Chūbu region Japan. It has been protected a ...

, a National Historic Site

References

External links

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