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 Nita District,

Shimane Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Chūgoku region of Honshu. Shimane Prefecture is the second-least populous prefecture of Japan at 665,205 (February 1, 2021) and has a geographic area of 6,708.26 km2. Shimane Prefecture borders Yamaguc ...

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 ...

. It was formed on March 31, 2005 from the merger of the towns of Nita and Yokota. As of March 1, 2017, the town has a

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 12,655 and a

density Density (volumetric mass density or specific mass) is the substance's mass per unit of volume. The symbol most often used for density is ''ρ'' (the lower case Greek letter rho), although the Latin letter ''D'' can also be used. Mathematical ...

of 34 persons per km². The area is 368.06 km².

History

The town of Okuizumo was one of the early centers of Tatara iron making method and remains the only modern site of it, producing a steel for the traditional Japanese swords. Nearby Komaki mine was used to produce

tungsten Tungsten, or wolfram, is a chemical element with the symbol W and atomic number 74. Tungsten is a rare metal found naturally on Earth almost exclusively as compounds with other elements. It was identified as a new element in 1781 and first isolat ...

from 1911 to 1984.

Geography

Climate

Okuizumo has a

humid subtropical climate A humid subtropical climate is a zone of climate characterized by hot and humid summers, and cool to mild winters. These climates normally lie on the southeast side of all continents (except Antarctica), generally between latitudes 25° and 40° ...

(

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 ...

''Cfa'') with very warm summers and cool winters. Precipitation is abundant throughout the year. The average annual temperature in Okuizumo is . The average annual rainfall is with July as the wettest month. The temperatures are highest on average in August, at around , and lowest in January, at around . The highest temperature ever recorded in Okuizumo was on 19 August 2010; the coldest temperature ever recorded was on 28 February 1981.

Demographics

Per Japanese census data, the population of Okuizumo in 2020 is 11,849 people. Okuizumo has been conducting censuses since 1920.

References

External links

*
Okuizumo official website
Towns in Shimane Prefecture {{shimane-geo-stub