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

Gunma Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Gunma Prefecture has a population of 1,937,626 (1 October 2019) and has a geographic area of 6,362 km2 (2,456 sq mi). Gunma Prefecture borders Niigata Prefecture and Fukushima ...

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 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 a ...

of 36,367 in 15685 households, and a

population density Population density (in agriculture: 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 term.Matt RosenberPopul ...

of 1440 persons per km². The total area of the town is .

Geography

Tamamura is located in southern Gunma prefecture in the northern extremity of the

Kantō plain The is the largest plain in Japan, and is located in the Kantō region of central Honshū. The total area of 17,000 km2 covers more than half of the region extending over Tokyo, Saitama Prefecture, Kanagawa Prefecture, Chiba Prefecture, ...

s, bordering

Saitama Prefecture is a landlocked prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Saitama Prefecture has a population of 7,338,536 (1 January 2020) and has a geographic area of 3,797 km2 (1,466 sq mi). Saitama Prefecture borders Tochigi Prefecture ...

to the south. The

Tama River The is a major river in Yamanashi, Kanagawa and Tokyo Prefectures on Honshū, Japan. It is officially classified as a Class 1 river by the Japanese government. Its total length is , and the total of the river's basin area spans . The river ...

flows through the town. *Rivers:

Tone River The is a river in the Kantō region of Japan. It is in length (the second longest in Japan after the Shinano) and has a drainage area of (the largest in Japan). It is nicknamed Bandō Tarō (); ''Bandō'' is an obsolete alias of the Kantō ...

, Karasu River

Surrounding municipalities

Takasaki is a city located in Gunma Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 372,369 in 167,345 households, and a population density of 810 persons per km². The total area of the city is . Takasaki is famous as the hometown of th ...

Maebashi is the capital city of Gunma Prefecture, in the northern Kantō region of Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 335,352 in 151,171 households, and a population density of 1100 persons per km2. The total area of the city is . It wa ...

* Fujioka * Isesaki

* Honjō * Kamisato

Climate

Kanra has a

Humid continental climate A humid continental climate is a climatic region defined by Russo-German climatologist Wladimir Köppen in 1900, typified by four distinct seasons and large seasonal temperature differences, with warm to hot (and often humid) summers and freezing ...

(Köppen ''Cfa'') characterized by hot summers and cold winters. The average annual temperature in Kanra is 14.5 °C. The average annual rainfall is 1250 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 3.4 °C.

Demographics

Per Japanese census data,Tamamura population statistics
/ref> the population of Tamamura has recently plateaued after several decades of strong growth.

History

Tamamura developed 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 characteriz ...

as a

post town A post town is a required part of all postal addresses in the United Kingdom and Ireland, and a basic unit of the postal delivery system.Royal Mail, ''Address Management Guide'', (2004) Including the correct post town in the address increases ...

on the

Nikkō Reiheishi Kaidō The was established during the Edo period as a subroute to Nikkō Kaidō. It connects the Nakasendō with the Nikkō Kaidō.Nikkō Kaidō The was one of the five routes of the Edo period and it was built to connect Edo (modern-day Tokyo) with the temple-shrine complex of the Mangan-ji and Tōshōsha (now called the Rinnō-ji and Tōshōgū), which are located in the present-day ...

which connects the

Nakasendō The , also called the ,Richard Lane, ''Images from the Floating World'' (1978) Chartwell, Secaucus ; pg. 285 was one of the five routes of the Edo period, and one of the two that connected Edo (modern-day Tokyo) to Kyoto in Japan. There were 6 ...

with Nikkō, bypassing

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 ...

.Nikkō Reiheishidō
Mainichi Shinbun. Accessed August 29, 2007.
. City of Takasaki. Accessed August 29, 2007. Tamamura town was created within

Nawa District, Gunma file: Gumma Sawa-gun 1889.png, Historic Map of Sawa District:1. Isesaki, 2. Misato, 3. Akabori, 4. Azuma, 5. Uehasu, 6. Moro, 7. Uneme, 8. Gōshi, 9. Sakai, 10. Shima, 11.Toyouke, 12.Nawa, 13. Shibane, 14. Tamamura, 15. Jōyō, 16. MiyagōRed and ...

Prefecture on April 1, 1889 with the creation of the modern municipalities system after the

Meiji Restoration The , referred to at the time as the , and also known as the Meiji Renovation, Revolution, Regeneration, Reform, or Renewal, was a political event that restored practical imperial rule to Japan in 1868 under Emperor Meiji. Although there were ...

. Nawa District and Sai District merged to form Sawa District in 1896. On April 10, 1955 Tamamura annexed the neighboring village of Shibane, followed by Jōyō on August 1, 1957.

Government

Tamamura has a mayor-council form of government with a directly elected mayor and a

unicameral Unicameralism (from ''uni''- "one" + Latin ''camera'' "chamber") is a type of legislature, which consists of one house or assembly, that legislates and votes as one. Unicameral legislatures exist when there is no widely perceived need for multic ...

town council of 13 members. Tamamura contributes one member to the Gunma Prefectural Assembly. In terms of national politics, the town is part of

Gunma 2nd district is a single-member constituency of the Japanese House of Representatives, the lower house of the National Diet. It is located on the island of Honshu, in Gunma Prefecture, and includes the cities of Isesaki and Kiryu, among others. Areas covere ...

of the

lower house A lower house is one of two Debate chamber, chambers of a Bicameralism, bicameral legislature, the other chamber being the upper house. Despite its official position "below" the upper house, in many legislatures worldwide, the lower house has co ...

of the

Diet of Japan The is the national legislature of Japan. It is composed of a lower house, called the House of Representatives (, ''Shūgiin''), and an upper house, the House of Councillors (, '' Sangiin''). Both houses are directly elected under a paralle ...

Economy

Many people were employed in

sericulture Sericulture, or silk farming, is the cultivation of silkworms to produce silk. Although there are several commercial species of silkworms, ''Bombyx mori'' (the caterpillar of the domestic silkmoth) is the most widely used and intensively studie ...

in the past. *

Agriculture Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people to ...

- 877 people (5.1%) *

Manufacturing Manufacturing is the creation or production of goods with the help of equipment, labor, machines, tools, and chemical or biological processing or formulation. It is the essence of secondary sector of the economy. The term may refer to a r ...

- 6957 people (40.2%) *

Service Service may refer to: Activities * Administrative service, a required part of the workload of university faculty * Civil service, the body of employees of a government * Community service, volunteer service for the benefit of a community or a pu ...

- 9490 people (54.8%)

Education

Kanra has five public elementary schools and two public middle schools operated by the town government and one public high school operated by the Gunma Prefectural Board of Education. The town also has one private elementary school. * Universities **

Gunma Prefectural Women's University is a public university in Tamamura, Gunma Prefecture, Japan. Established in 1980, it is one of the two public women's universities in Japan, alongside Fukuoka Women's University. History The school was established in 1980 in the city of Mae ...

Transportation

Railway

Tamamura does not have any passenger railway service. The nearest station is Shinmachi Station in the neighboring city of Takasaki.