270px, Nanbu town hall is a

town A town is a type of a human settlement, generally larger than a village but smaller than a city. The criteria for distinguishing a town vary globally, often depending on factors such as population size, economic character, administrative stat ...

located in

Yamanashi Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region of Honshu. Yamanashi Prefecture has a population of 787,592 (1 February 2025) and has a geographic area of 4,465 km2 (1,724 sq mi). Yamanashi Prefecture borders Saitama Prefecture to the n ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

. , the town had an estimated

population Population is a set of humans or other organisms in a given region or area. Governments conduct a census to quantify the resident population size within a given jurisdiction. The term is also applied to non-human animals, microorganisms, and pl ...

of 7222 in 3149 households, and a

population density Population density (in agriculture: Standing 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 geog ...

of 36 persons per km². The total area of the town is .

Geography

Nanbu is the southernmost municipality in Yamanashi Prefecture. The Fuji River runs through the town. Some 90% of the town's area is covered with forest, and less than 4% is used for agriculture. At an average elevation of 150 meters, Nanbu has the lowest elevation of any municipality in Yamanashi.

Neighboring municipalities

Shizuoka Prefecture * Aoi-ku, Shizuoka * Fujinomiya Yamanashi Prefecture * Minobu

Climate

The town has a climate characterized by characterized by hot and humid summers, and relatively mild winters (

Köppen climate classification The Köppen climate classification divides Earth climates into five main climate groups, with each group being divided based on patterns of seasonal precipitation and temperature. The five main groups are ''A'' (tropical), ''B'' (arid), ''C'' (te ...

''Cfa''). The average annual temperature in Nanbu is 15.1 °C. The average annual rainfall is 1858 mm with September as the wettest month. The temperatures are highest on average in August, at around 26.5 °C, and lowest in January, at around 4.5 °C.

Demographics

Per Japanese census data,Nanbu population statistics
/ref> the population of Nanbu has declined steadily over the past 80 years.

History

The area around present-day Nanbu is the ancestral home of the

Nanbu clan The was a Japanese clan, Japanese samurai clan who ruled most of northeastern Honshū in the Tōhoku region of Japan for over 700 years, from the Kamakura period through the Meiji Restoration of 1868. The Nanbu claimed descent from the Seiwa Ge ...

, a prominent ''

daimyō were powerful Japanese magnates, feudal lords who, from the 10th century to the early Meiji era, Meiji period in the middle 19th century, ruled most of Japan from their vast hereditary land holdings. They were subordinate to the shogun and no ...

'' clan in northern Japan during the

Edo period The , also known as the , is the period between 1600 or 1603 and 1868 in the history of Japan, when the country was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and some 300 regional ''daimyo'', or feudal lords. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengok ...

. During the Edo period, all of Kai Province was ''

tenryō The Tokugawa shogunate, also known as the was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. The Tokugawa shogunate was established by Tokugawa Ieyasu after victory at the Battle of Sekigahara, ending the civil war ...

'' territory under direct control of the

Tokugawa shogunate The Tokugawa shogunate, also known as the was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. The Tokugawa shogunate was established by Tokugawa Ieyasu after victory at the Battle of Sekigahara, ending the civil wars ...

. During the cadastral reform of the early

Meiji period The was 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 colonizatio ...

on April 1, 1889, the village of Nanbu was created within Minamikoma District, Yamanashi Prefecture. The village was raised to town status in 1955. Nanbu merged with the neighboring town of Tomizawa on March 1, 2003, forming the new town of Nanbu.

Economy

Traditionally, forest and the cultivation of green tea were mainstays of the local economy.

Education

Nanbu has four public elementary schools (Mutsuai ES, Sakae ES, Tomikawa ES and Manzawa ES) and one public junior high school (Nanbu JHS) operated by the town government. The town does not have a high school, so students must commute to neighboring town of Minobu or to the city of Fujinomiya in Shizuoka Prefecture.

Transportation

Railway

Central Japan Railway Company is the main railway company operating in the Chūbu (Nagoya) region of central Japan. It is officially abbreviated in English as JR Central and occasionally as JR Tokai (). The term ''Tōkai'' refers to the southern portion of Central Japan, ...

- Minobu Line ** - - -

Highway

* *

References

External links

Official Website
{{Authority control Towns in Yamanashi Prefecture