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 Haibara District, southern

Shizuoka Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region of Honshu. Shizuoka Prefecture has a population of 3,637,998 and has a geographic area of . Shizuoka Prefecture borders Kanagawa Prefecture to the east, Yamanashi Prefecture to the northea ...

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 29,593 in 11359 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 1400 persons per km². The total area of the town is .

Geography

Yoshida is located on the coastal plains of southwest Shizuoka Prefecture, facing Suruga Bay on the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...

. The

Ōi River The is a river in Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan. Geography The Ōi River flows from the Akaishi Mountains, the branch of the Japanese Southern Alps which form the border between Shizuoka, Nagano and Yamanashi prefectures. These mountains, with p ...

passes to the west of town. Warmed by the

Kuroshio Current The , also known as the Black or or the is a north-flowing, warm ocean current on the west side of the North Pacific Ocean basin. It was named for the deep blue appearance of its waters. Similar to the Gulf Stream in the North Atlantic, the Ku ...

, the area enjoys a temperate

maritime climate An oceanic climate, also known as a marine climate, is the humid temperate climate sub-type in Köppen classification ''Cfb'', typical of west coasts in higher middle latitudes of continents, generally featuring cool summers and mild winters ...

with hot, humid summers and mild, cool winters.

Surrounding municipalities

Shizuoka Prefecture *

Makinohara 270px, Makinohara City Hall is a city located in western Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 45,813 in 16980 households and a population density of 410 persons per km². The total area of the city was . Geogra ...

* Shimada *

Yaizu is a city located in central Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 139,578 in 57,593 households, and a population density of 2000 persons per km2. The total area of the city was . Yaizu is a noted port for commer ...

Demographics

Per Japanese census data, the population of Yoshida has been increasing over the past 50 years.

Climate

The city has a climate characterized by hot and humid summers, and relatively mild winters (

Köppen climate classification The Köppen climate classification is one of the most widely used climate classification systems. It was first published by German-Russian climatologist Wladimir Köppen (1846–1940) in 1884, with several later modifications by Köppen, notabl ...

''Cfa''). The average annual temperature in Yoshida is 16.4 °C. The average annual rainfall is 2151 mm with September as the wettest month. The temperatures are highest on average in August, at around 27.1 °C, and lowest in January, at around 6.3 °C.Yoshida climate data
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History

Located in former

Tōtōmi Province was a province of Japan in the area of Japan that is today western Shizuoka Prefecture. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "''Tōtōmi''" in . Tōtōmi bordered on Mikawa, Suruga and Shinano Provinces. Its abbreviated form name was . The or ...

, Yokosuka was a

castle town A castle town is a settlement built adjacent to or surrounding a castle. Castle towns were common in Medieval Europe. Some examples include small towns like Alnwick and Arundel, which are still dominated by their castles. In Western Europe, ...

in the

Sengoku period The was a period in History of Japan, Japanese history of near-constant civil war and social upheaval from 1467 to 1615. The Sengoku period was initiated by the Ōnin War in 1467 which collapsed the Feudalism, feudal system of Japan under the ...

, with Koyama castle built by the

Takeda clan The was a Japanese samurai clan active from the late Heian period until the late 16th century. The clan was historically based in Kai Province in present-day Yamanashi Prefecture. The clan reached its greatest influence under the rule of Taked ...

in 1568. The castle was destroyed by

Tokugawa Ieyasu was the founder and first ''shōgun'' of the Tokugawa Shogunate of Japan, which ruled Japan from 1603 until the Meiji Restoration in 1868. He was one of the three "Great Unifiers" of Japan, along with his former lord Oda Nobunaga and fellow ...

in 1582 and never rebuilt, although the town continued to prosper 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 regional commercial center due to its proximity to the Tōkaidō highway connecting Edo with

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 ...

. With the establishment of the modern municipalities system in the early

Meiji period The is an era of Japanese history that extended from October 23, 1868 to July 30, 1912. The Meiji era was the first half of the Empire of Japan, when the Japanese people moved from being an isolated feudal society at risk of colonization ...

in 1889, the area was reorganized into Yoshida Village from the merger of six pre-Meiji hamlets. It was elevated to town status on April 1, 1889.

Economy

Yoshida has a mixed economy based on agriculture, commercial fishing and light industry. Local specialities include eel,

melons A melon is any of various plants of the family Cucurbitaceae with sweet, edible, and fleshy fruit. The word "melon" can refer to either the plant or specifically to the fruit. Botanically, a melon is a kind of berry, specifically a " pepo". Th ...

and

iceberg lettuce Lettuce (''Lactuca sativa'') is an annual plant of the family Asteraceae. It is most often grown as a leaf vegetable, but sometimes for its stem and seeds. Lettuce is most often used for salads, although it is also seen in other kinds of food, ...

. Several industries are located along the

Tōmei Expressway The is a national expressway on the island of Honshū in Japan. It is operated by Central Nippon Expressway Company. The expressway is designated as E1 under the "2016 Proposal for Realization of Expressway Numbering", because it parallels Nati ...

, which passes through the town. These include

Fujifilm , trading as Fujifilm, or simply Fuji, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, operating in the realms of photography, optics, office and medical electronics, biotechnology, and chemicals. The offerings from th ...

, AGC Technologies,

Sony , commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional ...

and Kurita Kogyo.

Education

Yoshida has three public elementary schools and one public junior high school operated by the town government and one public high school operated by the Shizuoka Prefectural Board of Education. The town also has a private high school. The prefecture also operates one special education school for the handicapped.

Transportation

Railway

Yoshida has no passenger railway service.

Highway

Sister city relations

Yoshida had formerly established sister city relations with other cities of the same name around Japan. All of these cities have now been merged into other cities and no longer exist as independent municipalities. * Yoshida (Saitama Prefecture) - (Became a sister city in 1995) (Now the city of Chichibu) * Yoshida (Niigata Prefecture) - (Became a sister city in 1995) (Now the city of Tsubame) * Yoshida (Hiroshima Prefecture) - (Became a sister city in 1995) (Now the city of Akitakata) * Yoshida (Ehime Prefecture) - (Became a sister city in 1995) (Now the city of

Uwajima 270px, Uwajma City Hall 270px, Aerial view of Uwajma city center 270px, Japan National Route 320 in Uwajma city center is a city located in Ehime Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 70,440 in 35429 households and a ...

) * Yoshida (Kagoshima Prefecture) - (Became a sister city in 1995) (Now the city of

Kagoshima , abbreviated to , is the capital city of Kagoshima Prefecture, Japan. Located at the southwestern tip of the island of Kyushu, Kagoshima is the largest city in the prefecture by some margin. It has been nicknamed the "Naples of the Eastern wor ...

)

References

External links

Yoshida official website
in Japanese

(Commonly called "Sumiyoshi Shrine") * {{Authority control Towns in Shizuoka Prefecture Populated coastal places in Japan