270px, Hijiri onsen in Ōkura is a

village A village is a human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand. Although villages are often located in rural areas, the term urban v ...

Yamagata Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Tōhoku region of Honshu. It has a population of 1,005,926 (1 February 2025) and an area of 9,325 Square kilometre, km2 (3,600 Square mile, sq mi). Its neighbours are Akita Prefectu ...

, Japan. As of January 2020, the village has an estimated

population Population is a set of humans or other organisms in a given region or area. Governments conduct a census to quantify the resident population size within a given jurisdiction. The term is also applied to non-human animals, microorganisms, and pl ...

of 3044, and a

population density Population density (in agriculture: Standing 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 geog ...

of 14 persons per km². The total area is .

Geography

Ōkura is located in a mountainous north-central eastern Yamagata Prefecture, and includes Mount Gassan within its borders. The Mogami River runs through the village. The area is known for extremely heavy snows in winter. Its highest accumulation of snow recorded is 414 cm, second place in Japan after Sukayu Onsen in Aomori. Snow typically starts in November, and starts piling up on the ground by early December. The snow will usually stop by early May, but will not completely melt until mid-June. Similar to Sukayu Onsen, snowfalls of 50 to 100 cm in a single day are not uncommon at all.

Neighboring municipalities

*Yamagata Prefecture ** Funagata ** Murayama ** Nishikawa ** Sagae ** Shinjō ** Shōnai ** Tozawa

Climate

Ōkura 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 cold ...

(

Köppen climate classification The Köppen climate classification divides Earth climates into five main climate groups, with each group being divided based on patterns of seasonal precipitation and temperature. The five main groups are ''A'' (tropical), ''B'' (arid), ''C'' (te ...

''Cfa'') with large seasonal temperature differences, with warm to hot (and often humid) summers and cold (sometimes severely cold) winters. Precipitation is significant throughout the year, but is heaviest from August to October. The average annual temperature in Ōkura is . The average annual rainfall is with December as the wettest month. The temperatures are highest on average in August, at around , and lowest in January, at around .

Demographics

Per Japanese census data,Ōkura population statistics
/ref> the population of Ōkura peaked around 1950 and is now considerably less than it was a century ago.

History

The area of present-day Ōkura was part of ancient

Dewa Province was a province of Japan comprising modern-day Yamagata Prefecture and Akita Prefecture, except for the city of Kazuno and the town of Kosaka. Dewa bordered on Mutsu and Echigō Provinces. Its abbreviated form name was . History Early per ...

. During the

Sengoku period The was the period in History of Japan, Japanese history in which civil wars and social upheavals took place almost continuously in the 15th and 16th centuries. The Kyōtoku incident (1454), Ōnin War (1467), or (1493) are generally chosen as th ...

, the area was under the control of the Mogami clan. During the

Edo period The , also known as the , is the period between 1600 or 1603 and 1868 in the history of Japan, when the country was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and some 300 regional ''daimyo'', or feudal lords. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengok ...

, the village was a river port on the Mogami River and a post station on the pilgrimage route to Mount Gassan. After the start of the

Meiji period The was 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 colonizatio ...

, the area became part of Mogami District, Yamagata Prefecture. The village of Ōkura was established on April 1, 1889, with the establishment of the modern municipalities system.

Economy

The main industry is agriculture (tomato and buckwheat), ''

sake Sake, , or saki, also referred to as Japanese rice wine, is an alcoholic beverage of Japanese origin made by fermenting rice that has been polished to remove the bran. Despite the name ''Japanese rice wine'', sake, and indeed any East Asi ...

'' production, and seasonal tourism to its hot spring resorts. '' Kokeshi'' dolls are a noted local handicraft.

Education

Ōkura has one public elementary school and one public middle school operated by the village government. The village does not have a high school.

Geography

Neighboring municipalities

Climate

Demographics

History

Economy

Education

Transportation

Railways

Highways

Local attractions

References

External links