260px, Yokaren Peace Memorial Museum is a

town A town is a type of a human settlement, generally larger than a village but smaller than a city. The criteria for distinguishing a town vary globally, often depending on factors such as population size, economic character, administrative stat ...

located in

Ibaraki Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Ibaraki Prefecture has a population of 2,828,086 (1 July 2023) and has a geographic area of . Ibaraki Prefecture borders Fukushima Prefecture to the north, ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

. , the town had 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 47,927 in 20,279 households 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 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 * Miho * Tsuchiura * Ushiku

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 cold ...

(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 , 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 area around Ami was part of

Hitachi Province was an old provinces of Japan, old province of Japan in the area of Ibaraki Prefecture.Louis Frédéric, Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "''Hitachi fudoki''" in . It was sometimes called . Hitachi Province bordered on Shimōsa Province, S ...

. 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, Potsdam Declaration, when it was dissolved followin ...

established Kasumigaura Air Field, 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 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. 155� ...

operations also began from 1929. In 1937, the Youth Aviation Squadron was transferred from Yokosuka. The base was repeatedly bombed in 1944 and 1945 during

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, 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 consisting of one house or assembly that legislates and votes as one. Unicameralism has become an increasingly common type of legislature, making up nearly ...

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 of the

lower house A lower house is the lower chamber of a bicameral legislature, where the other chamber is the upper house. Although styled as "below" the upper house, in many legislatures worldwide, the lower house has come to wield more power or otherwise e ...

of the

Diet of Japan , transcription_name = ''Kokkai'' , legislature = 215th Session of the National Diet , coa_pic = Flag of Japan.svg , house_type = Bicameral , houses = , foundation=29 November 1890(), leader1_type ...

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 – Department of Agriculture * Ibaraki Prefectural University of Health Sciences *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 Kasumigaura *JGSDF Camp Tutiura *JGSDF Ordnance School

Local attractions

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

International relations

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

Liuzhou Liuzhou (; , Standard Mandarin: , Liuzhou Yue dialect: International Phonetic Alphabet, iəu53 ʦəu44 is a prefecture-level city in north-central Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, People's Republic of China. The prefecture's population was 4 ...

, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, China (friendship city) from June 1997

References

External links

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