260px, Yokaren Peace Memorial Museum 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

Ibaraki Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Ibaraki Prefecture has a population of 2,871,199 (1 June 2019) and has a geographic area of . Ibaraki Prefecture borders Fukushima Prefecture to the north, Tochigi Prefecture ...

, Japan. , 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 47,927 in 20,279 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 671 persons per km². The percentage of the population aged over 65 was 28.3%. The total area of the town is .

Geography

Located in southern Ibaraki Prefecture, Ami is bordered to the north by Lake Kasumigaura

Surrounding municipalities

* Inashiki *

Tsuchiura is a city located in Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 138,033 in 60,069 households and a population density of 1123 persons per km2. The percentage of the population aged over 65 was 29.7%. The total area of t ...

Ushiku is a city located in Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 84,675 in 35,082 households and a population density of 1437 persons per km2. The percentage of the population aged over 65 was 29.5%. The total area of th ...

* Miho

Climate

Ami 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 warm summers and cool winters with light snowfall. The average annual temperature in Ami is 13.8 °C. The average annual rainfall is 1306 mm with September as the wettest month. The temperatures are highest on average in August, at around 25.7 °C, and lowest in January, at around 2.8 °C.

Demographics

Per Japanese census data, the population of Ami has recently plateaued after a long period of growth.

History

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 ...

, the area around Ami was part of

Hitachi Province was an old province of Japan in the area of Ibaraki Prefecture. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "''Hitachi fudoki''" in . It was sometimes called . Hitachi Province bordered on Shimōsa (Lower Fusa), Shimotsuke, and Mutsu ( Iwase -17 ...

. The villages of Ami, Kimihara, Asahi and Funashima were created with the establishment of the modern municipalities system on April 1, 1889. In 1921, the

Imperial Japanese Navy The Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN; Kyūjitai: Shinjitai: ' 'Navy of the Greater Japanese Empire', or ''Nippon Kaigun'', 'Japanese Navy') was the navy of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945, when it was dissolved following Japan's surrend ...

established

Kasumigaura Air Field is a military aerodrome of the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force , south of Tsuchiura in Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan. History The base was established in 1921 as the Imperial Japanese Navy Aeronautical Technology and Training Center (海軍航� ...

, a naval aviation training base at Ami, with floatplane operations on nearby Kasumigaura.

Zeppelin A Zeppelin is a type of rigid airship named after the German inventor Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin () who pioneered rigid airship development at the beginning of the 20th century. Zeppelin's notions were first formulated in 1874Eckener 1938, pp ...

operations also began from 1929. In 1937, the Youth Aviation Squadron was transferred from

Yokosuka is a city in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. , the city has a population of 409,478, and a population density of . The total area is . Yokosuka is the 11th most populous city in the Greater Tokyo Area, and the 12th in the Kantō region. The city ...

. The base was repeatedly bombed in 1944 and 1945 during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

, with the attack on June 10, 1945 killing over 300 people. On April 1, 1955, the villages of Ami, Kimihara and Asahi merged to form the town of Ami. Most of the village of Funashima joined on April 20, 1955.

Government

Ami 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 ...

town council of 18 members. Ami contributes one member to the Ibaraki Prefectural Assembly. In terms of national politics, the town is part of

Ibaraki 6th district , the House of Representatives of Japan is elected from a combination of multi-member districts and single-member districts, a method called Parallel voting. Currently, 176 members are elected from 11 multi-member districts (called proportional r ...

of the lower house of the Diet of Japan.

Economy

Ami has a mixed economy. Agriculture remains predominant; however, there are also numerous factories for chemicals, light manufacturing and electronics. The Japanese Ground Self-Defense Force also has a number of military installations in the town.

Education

Ibaraki University , Japan, is a national university located in Ibaraki Prefecture, with campuses in the cities of Mito, Ami and Hitachi. It was established on May 31, 1949, integrating these prewar institutions: Mito High School (Mito Kōtō-Gakkō), Ibaraki No ...

– Department of Agriculture *

Ibaraki Prefectural University of Health Sciences is a public university in the town of Ami, Ibaraki, 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 ...

*Ami has seven public elementary schools and four public middle schools operated by the town government, and one public high school operated by the Ibaraki Prefectural Board of Education.

Transportation

Railway

*Ami does not have any passenger rail service. The nearest stations are and in neighboring Tsuchiura.

Highway

* – Ushiku-Ami Interchange, Ami-Higashi Interchange *

Military facilities

*JGSDF Camp Tutiura *JGSDF Ordnance School * JGSDF Camp Kasumigaura

Local attractions

*site of Jojo Castle *Yokaren Peace Memorial Museum *Ami Premium Outlet Shopping Center

International relations

* – Superior, WI, USA – sister city since 1997 * –

Liuzhou Liuzhou (; , IPA Pronunciation:) is a prefecture-level city in north-central Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, People's Republic of China. The prefecture's population was 3,758,700 in 2010, including 1,436,599 in the built-up area made of 4 urban ...

Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region Guangxi (; ; alternately romanized as Kwanghsi; ; za, Gvangjsih, italics=yes), officially the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region (GZAR), is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China, located in South China and bordering Vietnam ( ...

, China (friendship city) from June 1997

References

External links

Official Website
{{Authority control Towns in Ibaraki Prefecture Ami, Ibaraki