The is a peninsula in

Aomori Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan in the Tōhoku region. The prefecture's capital, largest city, and namesake is the city of Aomori. Aomori is the northernmost prefecture on Japan's main island, Honshu, and is bordered by the Pacific Ocean to the ea ...

, at the northern end of

Honshū , historically called , is the largest and most populous island of Japan. It is located south of Hokkaidō across the Tsugaru Strait, north of Shikoku across the Inland Sea, and northeast of Kyūshū across the Kanmon Straits. The island ...

island, Japan. The peninsula projects north into the

Tsugaru Strait The is a strait between Honshu and Hokkaido in northern Japan connecting the Sea of Japan with the Pacific Ocean. It was named after the western part of Aomori Prefecture. The Seikan Tunnel passes under it at its narrowest point 12.1 mile ...

separating Honshū from Hokkaidō. The western coast is on the

Sea of Japan The Sea of Japan is the marginal sea between the Japanese archipelago, Sakhalin, the Korean Peninsula, and the mainland of the Russian Far East. The Japanese archipelago separates the sea from the Pacific Ocean. Like the Mediterranean Sea, it h ...

, while on its eastern coast are

Aomori Bay The is a bay located north of the island of Honshu, in Japan. It is considered to be part of the larger Mutsu Bay. Geography Aomori Bay is an inner bay located to the west of Natsudomari Peninsula that protrudes in the center of the southern c ...

and Mutsu Bay. The peninsula is bisected from Cape Tappi at its northern end to the

Hakkōda Mountains The are an active volcanic complex in south-central Aomori Prefecture, Japan, in Towada-Hachimantai National Park. Often called or simply , the mountains are collectively listed as one of the 100 Famous Japanese Mountains. Its highest peak, ...

on its southern end by the Tsugaru Mountains. Across the Tsugaru strait to the north is Hokkaidō's Matsumae Peninsula, to which it is linked by the

Seikan Tunnel The Seikan Tunnel ( ja, 青函トンネル, or , ), is a dual-gauge railway tunnel in Japan, with a portion under the seabed of the Tsugaru Strait, which separates Aomori Prefecture on the main Japanese island of Honshu from the northern is ...

History

In 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 character ...

, the peninsula was part of the

Hirosaki Domain Hirosaki Castle, the seat of the Hirosaki Domain , also known as , was a '' tozama'' feudal domain of Edo period JapanRavina, Mark. (1998) ''Land and Lordship in Early Modern Japan,'' p. 222 It is located in Mutsu Province, in northern Hons ...

and was ruled by the Tsugaru clan. Traditionally one of the poorest and remotest areas of Japan, Tsugaru is best known as the birthplace of writer

Osamu Dazai was a Japanese author. A number of his most popular works, such as '' The Setting Sun'' (''Shayō'') and '' No Longer Human'' (''Ningen Shikkaku''), are considered modern-day classics. His influences include Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, Murasaki Sh ...

, who wrote the mordant travelogue '' Tsugaru'' about his travels around the peninsula, and for the ''

Tsugaru-jamisen or refers to both the Japanese genre of music originating from Tsugaru Peninsula in present-day Aomori Prefecture and the instrument it is performed with. It is performed throughout Japan, though associations with the Tsugaru remain strong ...

'', a distinctive local version of the Japanese string instrument shamisen. After the defeat of

Aizu is the westernmost of the three regions of Fukushima Prefecture, Japan, the other two regions being Nakadōri in the central area of the prefecture and Hamadōri in the east. As of October 1, 2010, it had a population of 291,838. The princip ...

during the Boshin War, many of the last samurai were sent to prisoner-of-war camps on the Tsugaru Peninsula.

Transportation

Rail

Hokkaido Shinkansen The is a Japanese high-speed Shinkansen rail line that links up with the Tōhoku Shinkansen in northern Aomori Prefecture in Honshu and continues on into the interior of Hokkaido through the undersea Seikan Tunnel. Construction started in M ...

Kaikyō Line The is an 87.8-kilometer long railway line operated mainly by the Hokkaido Railway Company (JR Hokkaido). The line connects Naka-Oguni Station in Sotogahama, Aomori, through the Seikan Tunnel between Honshu and Hokkaido, to Kikonai Station in ...

, linked to Hokkaidō via the Seikan Tunnel * Tsugaru Line * Tsugaru Railway As with

Fukushima Prefecture Fukushima Prefecture (; ja, 福島県, Fukushima-ken, ) is a prefecture of Japan located in the Tōhoku region of Honshu. Fukushima Prefecture has a population of 1,810,286 () and has a geographic area of . Fukushima Prefecture borders Miya ...

, JR

East East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth. Etymology As in other languages, the word is formed from the fa ...

treats Tsugaru as a separate province from Mutsu, and stations in the area are marked "''Tsugaru-''" before their names.

Highways

Japan National Route 280 is a national highway of Japan that traverses the prefectures, Aomori and Hokkaido as well as the Tsugaru Strait that separates them. It currently is made up of two sections that travel from Aomori, north across the Tsugaru Peninsula to So ...

* Japan National Route 339

External links

References

Peninsulas of Japan Landforms of Aomori Prefecture {{Aomori-geo-stub