is the name of a region along the coast of

Sagami Bay lies south of Kanagawa Prefecture in Honshu, central Japan, contained within the scope of the Miura Peninsula, in Kanagawa, to the east, the Izu Peninsula, in Shizuoka Prefecture, to the west, and the Shōnan coastline to the north, while th ...

Kanagawa Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Kanagawa Prefecture is the second-most populous prefecture of Japan at 9,221,129 (1 April 2022) and third-densest at . Its geographic area of makes it fifth-smallest. Kanag ...

, central Japan. Centered on

Sagami River The is a river in Kanagawa and Yamanashi Prefectures on the island of Honshū, Japan. The upper reaches of the river in Yamanashi prefecture are also sometimes known as the , and the portion near the river mouth as the . The river overall was ...

, about 60 kilometers southwest of

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and List of cities in Japan, largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, ...

, the Shōnan region stretches from Ninomiya in the west to Fujisawa in the east, including Ōiso,

Hiratsuka 260px, Hiratsuka City Hall is a city located in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 257,316 and a population density of 3800 persons per km². The total area of the city is . Geography Hiratsuka is located ...

, and

Chigasaki is a city located in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 242,798 and a population density of 6800 people per km². The total area of the city is . Geography The city is located on the eastern bank of the Sagami ...

. Because of the bay, the region benefits from a mild climate and long beaches covered with dark volcanic sand. Regions of Japan

Overview

The name "Shonan" of this Japanese region already existed in the 17th century, relative to Shigitatsu-an, according to Ōiso Town. During the 1880s, when the custom of swimming in the ocean was introduced into Japan, the "Shonan" region became a resort area for the politicians and rich people from Tokyo. In postwar times, the Shōnan region gained prominence in

Ishihara Shintaro was a Japanese politician and writer who was Governor of Tokyo from 1999 to 2012. Being the former leader of the radical right Japan Restoration Party, he was one of the most prominent ultranationalists in modern Japanese politics. An ultrana ...

's prize-winning 1955 novel, '' Taiyō no Kisetsu'' (''Season of the Sun''). The novel, which was also made into a popular movie, portrayed the hedonistic lifestyle of young sun-worshippers from elite families (''taiyo-zoku'', the "sun-tribe"), who hung out on Shōnan beaches. Lying as it does on the edge of the Tokyo-

Yokohama is the second-largest city in Japan by population and the most populous municipality of Japan. It is the capital city and the most populous city in Kanagawa Prefecture, with a 2020 population of 3.8 million. It lies on Tokyo Bay, south of T ...

metropolitan area, the Shōnan region is nowadays a leading resort area, oriented to surfing,

sailboating Sailing employs the wind—acting on sails, wingsails or kites—to propel a craft on the surface of the ''water'' (sailing ship, sailboat, raft, windsurfer, or kitesurfer), on ''ice'' (iceboat) or on ''land'' (land yacht) over a chosen cours ...

, and other

water sports Water (chemical formula ) is an inorganic, transparent, tasteless, odorless, and nearly colorless chemical substance, which is the main constituent of Earth's hydrosphere and the fluids of all known living organisms (in which it acts as a s ...

Etymology

There are two theories about the etymology of Shōnan (). One is that

where the Shōnan region is located was, until the first half of the 19th century, called Sagami-no-kuni ( 相模国) or Sōshū (相州) (as that phrase remains in

and

) and, that Shōnan was in the south ( 南) of Sōshū (the

water sign In Western astrology, astrological signs are the twelve 30-degree sectors that make up Earth's 360-degree orbit around the Sun. The signs enumerate from the first day of spring, known as the First Point of Aries, which is the vernal equinox. ...

氵 Radical 85 or radical water () meaning "water" is a Kangxi radical; one of 35 of the 214 that are composed of 4 strokes. Its left-hand form, , is closely related to Radical 15, ''bīng'' (also known as 两点水 ''liǎngdiǎnshuǐ''), meaning "i ...

of the Kanji radicals having been added to "相" to make it more

poetic Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings in a ...

). The other theory is that Shōnan comes from Xiangnan County (湘南県) of the old Province/Country of

Changsha Changsha (; ; ; Changshanese pronunciation: (), Standard Chinese, Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is the Capital city, capital and the largest city of Hunan Province of China. Changsha is the 17th most populous city in China with a popul ...

( 長沙国) in southern China. In the latter theory, the region's name, Shōnan, derives from a supposedly scenic region in

Hunan Hunan (, ; ) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China, part of the South Central China region. Located in the middle reaches of the Yangtze watershed, it borders the province-level divisions of Hubei to the north, Jiangxi ...

, China, encapsulated in the phrase 瀟湘湖南 (Chinese

pinyin Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Chinese, Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally writte ...

: "xiāo xiāng hú nán"; Japanese: "''shōshō konan''"). This phrase refers to a beautiful area on the

Xiao River The Xiao River ( ) is the Main Stream of the upper Xiang River located in Yongzhou, Hunan. As of 2011 Water Census of China, it has a length of from the headwaters to the confluence in the Ping Island of Yongzhou with the Xiang River West Branch ...

(瀟江) and the

Xiang River The Xiang River is the chief river of the Dongting Lake, Lake Dongting Drainage basin, drainage system of the middle Yangtze, the largest river in Hunan, Hunan Province, China. It is the 2nd largest tributary (after Min River (Sichuan), Min River ...

(湘江) south of the

Yangtze River The Yangtze or Yangzi ( or ; ) is the longest list of rivers of Asia, river in Asia, the list of rivers by length, third-longest in the world, and the longest in the world to flow entirely within one country. It rises at Jari Hill in th ...

in Hunan. Often praised in

Chinese poetry Chinese poetry is poetry written, spoken, or chanted in the Chinese language. While this last term comprises Classical Chinese, Standard Chinese, Mandarin Chinese, Yue Chinese, and other historical and vernacular forms of the language, its poetry ...

of the

Xiaoxiang Xiaoxiang (), also transliterated ''XiaoXiang'', ''Hsiao Hsiang'', and ''Chiu Chiang'', in some older sources, refers to the "lakes and rivers" region in south-central China south of the middle-reaches of the Yangtze River and corresponding, more ...

genre, the scenery of this area became a stylized and popular subject of paintings in both

medieval China The earliest known written records of the history of China date from as early as 1250 BC, from the Shang dynasty (c. 1600–1046 BC), during the reign of king Wu Ding. Ancient historical texts such as the '' Book of Documents'' (early chapte ...

and Japan, particularly as to the graphic and poetic series known as the "

Eight Views of Xiaoxiang The ''Eight Views of Xiaoxiang'' () are scenes of the Xiaoxiang region, in what is now modern Hunan Province, China, that were the subject of the poems and depicted in well-known drawings and paintings from the time of the Song Dynasty. The ''Ei ...

". In Japan, the scenery of the Shōnan area was thought to be similar to the scenery around the Xiao and Xiang rivers in Hunan, China; hence the term "Shōnan" (Chinese

: "xiāng nán", another name for the southern Hunan region) came to be applied to the area around Enoshima in Japan. Besides the similarity in scenery, the two areas both had flood-basin lakes. The lake in China, which still exists, is

Lake Dongting Dongting Lake () is a large, shallow lake in northeastern Hunan Province, China. It is a flood basin of the Yangtze River, so its volume depends on the season. The provinces of Hubei and Hunan are named after their location relative to the lake ...

. Among others, the lake is fed by the Xiang and Xiao rivers (the Xiao is a tributary of the Xiang). In Japan, the corresponding flood-basin lake (which no longer exists but was mentioned in the ''

Enoshima Engi The ''Enoshima Engi'' (江嶋縁起) is a history of the temples and shrines on Enoshima Island in Sagami Bay. It was written in Chinese language, Chinese, the scholarly language of the time, by the Japanese Buddhist monk Kōkei (monk), Kōkei in 10 ...

'') was probably located along the course of the Kashio River, which flows into Sagami Bay (via the Katase River) at Enoshima.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Shonan Chigasaki, Kanagawa Geography of Japan Geography of Kanagawa Prefecture Hiratsuka, Kanagawa Kamakura, Kanagawa Kantō region