was 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
Shimohei District,
Iwate Prefecture
is a prefecture of Japan located in the Tōhoku region of Honshu. It is the second-largest Japanese prefecture at , with a population of 1,210,534 (as of October 1, 2020). Iwate Prefecture borders Aomori Prefecture to the north, Akita Prefectur ...
in
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 ...
. Today it is part of the city of
Miyako.
History
The village of Tarō was created on April 1, 1889, within Higashihei District with the establishment of the municipality system. Higashihei merged with the Kitahei and Nakahei Districts to form Shimohei District on March 29, 1896. Tarō was raised to town status on April 1, 1944.
On June 6, 2005, Tarō, along with the village of
Niisato (also from
Shimohei District), merged into the expanded city of
Miyako and no longer exists as an independent
municipality
A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate.
The term ''municipality'' may also mean the go ...
.
In June 2005, 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 4,679 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 46.3 persons per km
2. The total area was 101.05 km
2.
The former town is located to the east of the prefectural capital
Morioka
is the capital city of Iwate Prefecture located in the Tōhoku region of northern Japan. On 1 February 2021, the city had an estimated population of 290,700 in 132,719 households, and a population density of . The total area of the city is .
...
and north of the regional center
Miyako with which it has now merged. The area has a rugged coastline to the east, which is a part of
Sanriku
, sometimes known as , lies on the northeastern side of the island of Honshu, corresponding to today's Aomori, Iwate and parts of Miyagi Prefecture and has a long history.
The 36 bays of this irregular coastline tend to amplify the destructivenes ...
ria
A ria (; gl, ría) is a coastal inlet formed by the partial submergence of an unglaciated river valley. It is a drowned river valley that remains open to the sea.
Definitions
Typically rias have a Drainage system (geomorphology)#Dendritic dr ...
Coast. The main local industry is
commercial fishing
Commercial fishing is the activity of catching fish and other seafood for commercial profit, mostly from wild fisheries. It provides a large quantity of food to many countries around the world, but those who practice it as an industry must often ...
.
The town had been destroyed a number of times due to
tsunami
A tsunami ( ; from ja, 津波, lit=harbour wave, ) is a series of waves in a water body caused by the displacement of a large volume of water, generally in an ocean or a large lake. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and other underwater explo ...
incidents all throughout its history. One of the earliest recorded was in
1611
Events
January–June
* February 27 – Sunspots are observed by telescope, by Frisian astronomers Johannes Fabricius and David Fabricius. Johannes publishes the results of these observations, in ''De Maculis in Sole observa ...
, but was later followed by similar tsunamis in
1896
Events
January–March
* January 2 – The Jameson Raid comes to an end, as Jameson surrenders to the Boers.
* January 4 – Utah is admitted as the 45th U.S. state.
* January 5 – An Austrian newspaper reports that Wil ...
(with 1,859 recorded deaths) and
1933
Events
January
* January 11 – Sir Charles Kingsford Smith makes the first commercial flight between Australia and New Zealand.
* January 17 – The United States Congress votes in favour of Philippines independence, against the wis ...
(with 911 recorded deaths).
Due to its history of repeated destruction by tsunamis, two layers of seawalls in the form of an X-shaped structure were constructed. The seawalls had two joined sections forming seaward and landward levees, and ran to a total of long. It was known as a ''Banri no Chojo:'' Japanese for "
Great Wall of China
The Great Wall of China (, literally "ten thousand ''li'' wall") is a series of fortifications that were built across the historical northern borders of ancient Chinese states and Imperial China as protection against various nomadic grou ...
."
[
The high seawalls were completed in 1958 after 30 years of work to protect Tarō.][ Local municipal agencies regularly carried out annual tsunami drills simulating an emergency, wherein volunteers would close the seawall gates and residents would go to muster points above the town. The system worked well when a tsunami from the ]1960 Valdivia earthquake
The 1960 Valdivia earthquake and tsunami ( es, link=no, Terremoto de Valdivia) or the Great Chilean earthquake (''Gran terremoto de Chile'') on 22 May 1960 was the most powerful earthquake ever recorded. Various studies have placed it at 9.4– ...
in Chile struck the town, resulting in zero lives lost in Tarō.
2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami
After years of success, the seawalls failed when tsunami waves estimated at to high struck Tarō following the earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011.[ Many in the town said they felt the wall lulled them into a false sense of security. A section of the seaside wall was swept away by the tsunami. Large amounts of concrete debris was left around Tarō and scattered in its bay. 181 people were dead or missing in the tsunami, with nearly 1,700 houses damaged or destroyed.]
References
External links
Official website of Miyako
Tarō sea wall before and after the tsunami
by NHK
, also known as NHK, is a Japanese public broadcaster. NHK, which has always been known by this romanized initialism in Japanese, is a statutory corporation funded by viewers' payments of a television license fee.
NHK operates two terrestri ...
Aerial views
showing the extent of Tarō's coastal defences before March 2011
Computer graphic
showing the effects of the tsunami
A tsunami ( ; from ja, 津波, lit=harbour wave, ) is a series of waves in a water body caused by the displacement of a large volume of water, generally in an ocean or a large lake. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and other underwater explo ...
on Tarō.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Taro, Iwate
Dissolved municipalities of Iwate Prefecture
Miyako, Iwate