The is a river in Kyoto Prefecture,

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 river originates in the foothills of Mount Hiei on the outskirts of Kyoto, through the Geisha district of

Gion is a district of Higashiyama-ku, Kyoto, Japan, originating as an entertainment district in the Sengoku period, in front of Yasaka Shrine (Gion Shrine). The district was built to accommodate the needs of travellers and visitors to the shrine. ...

and eventually ends up in the

Kamo River The is located in Kyoto Prefecture, Japan. The riverbanks are popular walking spots for residents and tourists. In summer, restaurants open balconies looking out to the river. There are walkways running alongside the river, and some stepping ...

. Its name, which means "white river" in Japanese, probably refers to the white coloured sand and gravel that it carries from the hills east of

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 ...

. Many

ochaya In Japan, an is an establishment where patrons are entertained by geisha. A now-archaic term that arose in the Edo period, in the modern day refers exclusively to the establishments within Kyoto in which geisha work and entertain their clients ...

(geisha houses) and restaurants line the banks of the Shirakawa as it passes through the geisha district of

, in Kyoto.

Shirakawa-suna

Most

Japanese rock garden The or Japanese rock garden, often called a zen garden, is a distinctive style of Japanese garden. It creates a miniature stylized landscape through carefully composed arrangements of rocks, water features, moss, pruned trees and bushes, and us ...

s in Kyoto have historically used gravel as one of their design elements. Sourced from the upper reaches of the Shirakawa River it is known as ''Shirakawa-suna'', (白川砂利, "Shirakawa-sand") despite the individual pieces being much bigger than the grains of what is regarded as normal ''suna'' (sand). The individual pieces vary from 2 mm to up to even 30 to 50 mm in size. This type of muted black-speckled granite which is known for its rather muted colour palette is a mix of three main minerals, white feldspar, grey quartz, and black mica which matches the aesthetic for most Japanese rock gardens. ''Shirakawa-suna'' also has an eroded texture that alternates between jagged and smooth and is prized for its ability to hold raked grooves, with patterns lasting weeks unless weather, animals or humans intervene. As of 2018 in Kyoto alone there are 341 areas spread over 166 temples covering a surface area of over 29,000 m² which have used ''Shirakawa-suna''. Gravel is used in the entrance, main garden, and corridor area and takes four forms, spread gravel, gravel terrace, gravel pile, and garden path. Among the gardens which used Shirakawa-suna have been

Ryōan-ji Ryōan-ji ( ja, 竜安寺, label=Shinjitai, ja, 龍安寺, label=Kyūjitai, ''The Temple of the Dragon at Peace'') is a Zen temple located in northwest Kyoto, Japan. It belongs to the Myōshin-ji school of the Rinzai branch of Zen Buddhism. The ...

and

Daitoku-ji is a Buddhist temple, one of fourteen autonomous branches of the Rinzai school of Japanese Zen. It is located in Kita-ku, Kyoto, Japan. The "mountain name" ('' sangō'') by which it is known is . The Daitoku-ji temple complex today covers more ...

. Since the late 1950s the river has been a protected waterway and extraction of gravel from the river has been illegal. Over time the gravel in a garden becomes weather-beaten and becomes finer, forcing gardeners to occasionally replenish it in order for the gravel to retain the patterns made in them. Since the banning of extraction from the Shirakawa River the gravel used for both maintenance of existing gardens and the creation of new ones is sourced from quarried mountain granite of similar composition that is crushed and sieved. However the process of manufacturing creates rounded particles of the same size, lacking the pattern holding characteristics of true ''Shirakawa-suna'', which have corners and are not uniform in size.

References

Rivers of Kyoto Prefecture Rivers of Japan {{Japan-river-stub