Ōsaki City Hall is a

city A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be def ...

located in Miyagi Prefecture,

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 city 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 128,763 in 51,567 households, and a

population density Population density (in agriculture: Stock (disambiguation), 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 ...

of 160 persons per km². The total area of the city is . Ōsaki is a member of the

World Health Organization The World Health Organization (WHO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for international public health. The WHO Constitution states its main objective as "the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of ...

’s

Alliance for Healthy Cities The Alliance for Healthy Cities (AFHC) is a cooperative international alliance aimed at protecting and enhancing the health and health care of city dwellers. It is composed of groups of cities, urban districts and other organizations from countrie ...

(AFHC).

Geography

Ōsaki is in north-central Miyagi Prefecture in the northern Sendai Plain. The Furukawa area in the center of the city is a base for commercial and service industries in the northern portion of Miyagi Prefecture, and the Naruko area in the northwestern of the city is noted for

hot spring A hot spring, hydrothermal spring, or geothermal spring is a spring produced by the emergence of geothermally heated groundwater onto the surface of the Earth. The groundwater is heated either by shallow bodies of magma (molten rock) or by c ...

tourism . The Kashimadai and Matsuyama districts in the southeastern part of the city are within the commuting zone of Sendai.

Climate

Ōsaki has a humid subtropical climate (

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'') characterized by hot summers and mild winters. The average annual temperature in Ōsaki is 11.5 °C. The average annual rainfall is 1249 mm with September as the wettest month. The temperatures are highest on average in August, at around 24.4 °C, and lowest in January, at around -0.6 °C.

Neighboring municipalities

Miyagi Prefecture * Tome *

Kurihara Kurihara City Hall is a city located in Miyagi Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 66,565, and a population density of 83 persons per km2 in 24,994 households. The total area of the city is . Parts of the city are wi ...

* Misato * Wakuya * Ōsato * Ōhira * Shikama *

Kami are the deities, divinities, spirits, phenomena or "holy powers", that are venerated in the Shinto religion. They can be elements of the landscape, forces of nature, or beings and the qualities that these beings express; they can also be the sp ...

* Matsushima Yamagata Prefecture * Mogami Akita Prefecture * Yuzawa

Demographics

Per Japanese census data, the population of Ōsaki has remained relatively steady over the past 60 years.

History

The area of present-day Ōsaki was part of ancient Mutsu Province, and has been settled since at least the Jōmon period by the Emishi people. During the

Nara period The of the history of Japan covers the years from CE 710 to 794. Empress Genmei established the capital of Heijō-kyō (present-day Nara). Except for a five-year period (740–745), when the capital was briefly moved again, it remained the c ...

, gold was discovered in the area. During later portion of the

Heian period The is the last division of classical Japanese history, running from 794 to 1185. It followed the Nara period, beginning when the 50th emperor, Emperor Kanmu, moved the capital of Japan to Heian-kyō (modern Kyoto). means "peace" in Japanese ...

, the area was ruled by the Northern Fujiwara. During 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 ...

, the area was contested by various

samurai were the hereditary military nobility and officer caste of medieval and early-modern Japan from the late 12th century until their abolition in 1876. They were the well-paid retainers of the '' daimyo'' (the great feudal landholders). They h ...

clans before the area came under the control of the

Date clan The is a Japanese samurai kin group. Papinot, Jacques Edmond Joseph. (1906). ''Dictionnaire d’histoire et de géographie du Japon''; Papinot, (2003)"Date", ''Nobiliare du Japon'', p. 5 retrieved 2013-5-5. History The Date family was founded ...

Sendai Domain The , also known as the , was a domain of the Tokugawa Shogunate of Japan during the Edo period from 1600 to 1871. The Sendai Domain was based at Aoba Castle in Mutsu Province, in the modern city of Sendai, located in the Tōhoku region of the i ...

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 characte ...

, under the

Tokugawa shogunate The Tokugawa shogunate (, Japanese 徳川幕府 ''Tokugawa bakufu''), also known as the , was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005)"''Tokugawa-jidai''"in ''Japan Encyclopedia ...

. The town of Furukawa was established with the creation of the modern municipalities system on April 1, 1889. It was raised to city status on December 15, 1950. The city of Ōsaki was established on March 31, 2006, from the merger of the city of Furukawa absorbed the towns of Iwadeyama and Naruko (both from Tamatsukuri District), the towns of Kashimadai,

Matsuyama 270px, Matsuyama City Hall 270px, Ehime Prefectural Capital Building is the capital city of Ehime Prefecture on the island of Shikoku in Japan and also Shikoku's largest city. , the city had an estimated population of 505,948 in 243541 househo ...

and Sanbongi (all from Shida District), and the town of Tajiri (from Tōda District).

Government

Ōsaki 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 multi ...

city legislature of 30 members.　Ōsaki contributes four seats to the Miyagi Prefectural legislature. In terms of national politics, the city is part of

Miyagi 6th district was an electoral district for the Japanese House of Representatives. The district was established In 1994 as a single member district from most of Miyagi 2nd district (excluding the city of Ishinomaki and the districts of Monou and Oshika). ...

of the lower house of the Diet of Japan.

Economy

The economy of Ōsaki is largely based on agriculture, primarily the cultivation of rice and soybeans. Industry includes electronics, precision machining and construction materials.

Education

* Miyagi Seishin Junior College * Ōsaki has 25 elementary public schools and 10 public junior high schools operated by the city government. There are five public high schools, and two combined public middle/high schools operated by the Miyagi Prefectural Board of Education and two private high schools and one combined private middle/high school. The prefecture also operates one special education school for the handicapped.

Transportation

Railway

East Japan Railway Company (JR East) -

Tōhoku Shinkansen The is a Japanese high-speed Shinkansen rail line, connecting Tokyo with Aomori in Aomori Prefecture in a route length of , making it Japan's longest Shinkansen line. It runs through the more sparsely populated Tōhoku region of Japan's main ...

East Japan Railway Company (JR East) -

Tōhoku Main Line The Tōhoku Main Line ( ja, 東北本線, ) is a long railway line in Japan operated by the East Japan Railway Company (JR East). The line starts from Tokyo Station in Chiyoda, Tokyo and passes through such cities as Saitama, Utsunomiya, Fuku ...

* - -

East Japan Railway Company (JR East) -

Rikuu East Line The is a railway line in Japan, operated by the East Japan Railway Company (JR East). It connects Kogota Station in Misato, Miyagi Prefecture to Shinjō Station in Shinjō, Yamagata Prefecture, acting as a connector between the Tōhoku Main ...

* - - - - - - - - - - - -

Highway

* - Furukawa IC; Chōjahara PA * * * * * *

Local attractions

Yūbikan The is an Edo period structure located in what is now the city of Ōsaki, Miyagi Prefecture, Japan. It served as a han school for the Date clan of Sendai Domain, and is the oldest existing educational structure in Japan. The building, together w ...

, former Date clan school and gardens; registered National Historic Site an Place of Scenic Beauty * Miyazawa Site, ruins of early Heian-period fort; National Historic Site * Yamahata Cave Tomb Cluster, National Historic Site * Daikichiyama Tile Kiln Site, National Historic Site * Nakazawame Shell Mound, National Historic Site * Kido Tile Kiln Site, National Historic Site * Myōdate Kanga ruins, National Historic Site * Dewa Sendai Kaidō Nakayamagoe Pass, National Historic Site

Sister city relations

* -

Middletown, Ohio Middletown is a city located in Butler and Warren counties in the southwestern part of the U.S. state of Ohio, about 35 miles (47 km) north of Cincinnati. The population as of the 2020 census was 50,987. It is part of the Cincinnati metrop ...

, USA, since October 18, 1990 * -

Jinshui District Jinshui District () is one of 6 urban districts of the prefecture-level city of Zhengzhou, the capital of Henan Province, South Central China. The District is 135.3 square km, in which the urban area is 70.65 square km. The total population is ...

, Zhengzhou,

Henan Province Henan (; or ; ; alternatively Honan) is a landlocked province of China, in the central part of the country. Henan is often referred to as Zhongyuan or Zhongzhou (), which literally means "central plain" or "midland", although the name is al ...

, China, since July 19, 1994 * -

Dublin, Georgia Dublin is a city in Laurens County, Georgia, United States. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 16,074. It is the county seat of Laurens County. History The original settlement was named after Dublin, Ireland. Dublin, accordi ...

, USA, since May 29, 1998

Noted people from Ōsaki

* Sakuzō Yoshino, author * Shinji Yoshino, politician, cabinet minister *

Frank Nagai Frank Nagai (フランク永井; March 18, 1932 – October 27, 2008) was a Japanese singer. Known for his attractive baritone voice. His real name was Kiyoto Nagai (永井清人 ''Nagai Kiyoto''). Life Frank Nagai was born in Matsuyama, Mi ...

, singer * Ryōji Chūbachi, businessman *

Naoko Fujioka is a Japanese professional boxer. She is Japan's first ever five-division world champion, having held the WBA female flyweight title between March 2017 to April 2022. She also previously held the WBC female minimumweight; WBO female junio ...

, female

professional boxer Professional boxing, or prizefighting, is regulated, sanctioned boxing. Professional boxing bouts are fought for a purse that is divided between the boxers as determined by contract. Most professional bouts are supervised by a regulatory autho ...

Mao Inoue Mao Inoue (born January 9, 1987) is a Japanese actress. She debuted as an actress when she was five years old. She is best known to Japanese television drama audiences as in , as Makino Tsukushi in the popular ''Hana Yori Dango'' series, an ...

professional wrestler Professional wrestling is a form of theater that revolves around staged wrestling matches. The mock combat is performed in a ring similar to the kind used in boxing, and the dramatic aspects of pro wrestling may be performed both in the ring o ...

References

External links

Official Website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Osaki, Miyagi Cities in Miyagi Prefecture