180503 Go-no-kawa Gotsu Shimane pref Japan11s3

Gotsu city center area Aerial photograph

is a

city A city is a human settlement of a substantial size. The term "city" has different meanings around the world and in some places the settlement can be very small. Even where the term is limited to larger settlements, there is no universally agree ...

located in

Shimane Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Chūgoku region of Honshu. Shimane Prefecture is the List of Japanese prefectures by population, second-least populous prefecture of Japan at 665,205 (February 1, 2021) and has a ge ...

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 city 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 21,913 in 11196 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 82 persons per km². The total area of the city is . It is the smallest and least populous city in Shimane Prefecture.

Geography

Gōtsu is located in the western part of Shimane Prefecture. It consists of coastal terraces in the north that extend from east to west, and hilly areas in the south.The Gōnokawa River, one of the few rivers that runs through the Chugoku Mountains and the largest river in the Chugoku region, flows into the

Sea of Japan The Sea of Japan is the marginal sea between the Japanese archipelago, Sakhalin, the Korean Peninsula, and the mainland of the Russian Far East. The Japanese archipelago separates the sea from the Pacific Ocean. Like the Mediterranean Sea, it ...

in this city. Approximately 79% of Gōtsu's land are is forested. It is said to be the city with the longest travel time from Tokyo, and is advertised as "the furthest city from Tokyo", a point which has been featured in high school "Geography A" textbooks. Overlooking Gōtsu City is Hoshitaka Mountain, or "Star Mountain", so named for the star pattern carved into the face of the mountain. According to Gōtsu legend, the star was formed by a meteor that had fallen many years ago. A piece of this meteor was saved, and a shrine was built at the foot of the mountain to honor the event. In the winter, snowfall on the mountain creates a beautiful star-shaped pattern, visible from anywhere in the city. In the spring, white azaleas bloom to form a white star, while the area bordering the star remains green. In the summer, in celebration of the Japanese Obon Festival, the star is lit up at night.

Neighboring municipalities

Shimane Prefecture *

Hamada A hamada (, ) is a type of desert landscape consisting of high, largely barren, hard rocky (basalt) plateaus, where most of the sand has been removed by Aeolian processes#Wind erosion, deflation. The majority of the Sahara is hamada. Other e ...

* Ōda * Ōnan * Kawamoto

Climate

Gōtsu has a

humid subtropical climate A humid subtropical climate is a subtropical -temperate climate type, characterized by long and hot summers, and cool to mild winters. These climates normally lie on the southeast side of all continents (except Antarctica), generally between ...

(Köppen ''Cfa'') characterized by warm summers and cool winters with light to no snowfall. The average annual temperature in Gōtsu is 15.4 °C. The average annual rainfall is 1681 mm with September as the wettest month. The temperatures are highest on average in August, at around 26.4 °C, and lowest in January, at around 5.2 °C.

Demographics

Per Japanese census data, the population of Gōtsu has been decreasing.

History

The area of Gōtsu was part of ancient

Iwami Province was an old province of Japan in the area that is today the western part of Shimane Prefecture. It was sometimes called . Iwami bordered Aki, Bingo, Izumo, Nagato, and Suō provinces. In the Heian period (794–1192) the capital was at moder ...

, and prospered as an important point for shipping and shipping on the Sea of Japan since ancient times. Burial mounds from the middle third of the Middle

Yayoi period The Yayoi period (弥生時代, ''Yayoi jidai'') (c. 300 BC – 300 AD) is one of the major historical periods of the Japanese archipelago. It is generally defined as the era between the beginning of food production in Japan and the emergence o ...

were discovered in Gōtsu in 1973. The area was mostly controlled as ''

tenryō The Tokugawa shogunate, also known as the was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. The Tokugawa shogunate was established by Tokugawa Ieyasu after victory at the Battle of Sekigahara, ending the civil war ...

'' under direct control of the

Tokugawa shogunate The Tokugawa shogunate, also known as the was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. The Tokugawa shogunate was established by Tokugawa Ieyasu after victory at the Battle of Sekigahara, ending the civil wars ...

in 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 ...

. After the

Meiji restoration The , referred to at the time as the , and also known as the Meiji Renovation, Revolution, Regeneration, Reform, or Renewal, was a political event that restored Imperial House of Japan, imperial rule to Japan in 1868 under Emperor Meiji. Althoug ...

, the village of Gōtsu was established on April 1, 1889 with the creation of the modern municipalities system. On May 27, 1905, the Russian transport vessel Irtysh of the Russian Baltic Fleet sustained damaged from Japanese warships in the waters off Tsushima Island. After drifting to within 2 km of the coast Gōtsu's Waki district the ship began to sink. Gōtsu residents rescued over 200 Russian soldiers. The event has been memorialized since the following year and is now known as the Russia festival. In 1959, the former chairman of the Japan Shipbuilding Industry Foundation Ryoichi Sasakawa erected a 2.9 meter tall

cenotaph A cenotaph is an empty grave, tomb or a monument erected in honor of a person or group of people whose remains are elsewhere or have been lost. It can also be the initial tomb for a person who has since been reinterred elsewhere. Although t ...

. Gōtsu was elevated to town status on July 1, 1914. On April 1, 1954, modern day Gōtsu City was formed through the merging of numerous villages. On October 1, 2004, the town of Sakurae (from Ōchi District) was merged into Gōtsu.

Government

Gōtsu 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 ...

city council of 16 members. Gōtsu contributes one member to the Shimane Prefectural Assembly. In terms of national politics, the city is part of the

Shimane 2nd 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 re ...

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 ...

Mayor of Gōtsu City

On May 29, 2022, Ataru Nakamura won the mayoral election in Gōtsu City. At 43 years old, Nakamura became the youngest mayor out of eight cities in Shimane Prefecture. Before becoming mayor, Nakamura worked at a welfare facility for the elderly and served as secretary to Japanese house of representative member

Wataru Takeshita was a Japanese politician who served in the House of Representatives in the Diet (national legislature) as a member of the Liberal Democratic Party. A native of Kakeya, Shimane and graduate of Keio University he was elected for the first time ...

Economy

The main industries in Gōtsu are agriculture and

commercial fishing Commercial fishing is the activity of catching fish and other seafood for Commerce, commercial Profit (economics), profit, mostly from wild fisheries. It provides a large quantity of food to many countries around the world, but those who practice ...

, As a local industry, the city has long been known as the center of the production of Sekishu

roof tile Roof tiles are overlapping tiles designed mainly to keep out precipitation such as rain or snow, and are traditionally made from locally available materials such as clay or slate. Later tiles have been made from materials such as concrete, glass ...

s, ceramics (Iwami ware) and clay and stone products, which account for the largest shipment value of manufactured goods. Due to good transportation connections and low land prices, companies such as biomass power plants and resin processing manufacturers have also entered the market.

Education

Gōtsu has seven public elementary school and four public junior high schools operated by the city government, and two public high schools operated by the Shimane Prefectural Board of Education. There are also two private high schools. At Shimane Vocational Ability Development Junior College (島根職業能力開発短期大学校), engineering and technician training is offered. Shimane prefectural Gotsu high school.jpg, Shimane Prefectural Gotsu High School Shimane prefectural Gotsu-kogyo high school.jpg, Shimane Prefectural Gotsu Technical High School キリスト教愛真高等学校.JPG, Christian Aishin High School

Transportation

Railway

JR West , also referred to as , is one of the Japan Railways Group (JR Group) companies and operates in western Honshu. It has its headquarters in Kita-ku, Osaka. It is listed in the Tokyo Stock Exchange, is a constituent of the TOPIX Large70 index, ...

(JR West) –

San'in Main Line The is a railway line in western Japan, which connects Kyoto and Shimonoseki, Yamaguchi, operated by West Japan Railway Company (JR West). It is the major railway line of the San'in region, approximately paralleling the Japan Sea, crossing Kyot ...

* – – – – –

(JR West) –

Sankō Line The is a former railway line and current bus line in western Japan operated by the West Japan Railway Company (JR West). The 108.1 km (67.2 mi) line connected in Shimane Prefecture to in Hiroshima Prefecture and featured 30 tunnels. ...

Closed on April 1, 2018 * '' – – – – – – – ''

Highways

San'in Expressway * * *

Sister cities

Corona, California Corona (Spanish language, Spanish for "Crown") is a city in northwestern Riverside County, California, United States, directly bordering Orange County, California, Orange and San Bernardino County, California, San Bernardino counties. Its curre ...

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

, friendship city

Local attractions

Arifuku Onsen

Arifuku Onsen (有福温泉 (ありふくおんせん)) is a

hot spring A hot spring, hydrothermal spring, or geothermal spring is a Spring (hydrology), spring produced by the emergence of Geothermal activity, geothermally heated groundwater onto the surface of the Earth. The groundwater is heated either by shallow ...

in Gōtsu City said to have been founded more than 1,350 years ago by a monk named Hōdō (法道 (ほうどう)).

Ceramic and clay goods

Iwami Ware (石見焼 (いわみやき)) is a type of

Japanese pottery is one of the oldest Japanese crafts and Japanese art, art forms, dating back to the Neolithic period. Types have included earthenware, pottery, stoneware, porcelain, and Blue and white porcelain, blue-and-white ware. Japan has an exception ...

that is made in the Iwami region and is centered in Gōtsu City. Iwami Ware was introduced to Gōtsu City in 1763. Ceramic and clay goods are considered to be local specialties. Ceramic practices have developed throughout Gōtsu City's history.

Other

Sekishuken Laboratory in Gōtsu researches the history of the Sekishuken breed of dogs. The ancestor of all living

Shiba Inu The is a breed of hunting dog from Japan. A small-to-medium breed, it is the smallest of the six original dog breeds native to Japan. The Shiba Inu was originally bred for hunting. Its name literally translates to "brushwood dog", as it is us ...

, Ishi, was from the Sekishuken breed, indigenous to western Shimane.

Notable people from Gōtsu

* Shūe Matsubayashi, movie director * Tsubasa Oya, former soccer player * Toshio Shimada, politician *

Masashi Tanaka Masashi Tanaka (田中政志, born June 10, 1962) is a Japanese manga artist best known for creating ''Gon (manga), Gon'', a silent manga starring a miniature dinosaur. Biography Masashi Tanaka was born in Gōtsu, Shimane. He graduated from th ...

, manga artist

References

External links

*
Gōtsu City official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gotsu, Shimane Cities in Shimane Prefecture Port settlements in Japan Populated coastal places in Japan Gōtsu, Shimane