is a

district A district is a type of administrative division that in some countries is managed by the local government. Across the world, areas known as "districts" vary greatly in size, spanning regions or county, counties, several municipality, municip ...

located in

Tottori Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Chūgoku region of Honshu. Tottori Prefecture is the List of Japanese prefectures by population, least populous prefecture of Japan at 538,525 (2023) and has a geographic area of . ...

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 ...

. As of 2012, the district 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 12,036 and a

density Density (volumetric mass density or specific mass) is the ratio of a substance's mass to its volume. The symbol most often used for density is ''ρ'' (the lower case Greek letter rho), although the Latin letter ''D'' (or ''d'') can also be u ...

of 20.1 persons per km². The total area is .

History

Hino District has been settled since ancient times. The area is especially rich in remains from the late

Kofun period The is an era in the history of Japan from about 300 to 538 AD (the date of the introduction of Buddhism), following the Yayoi period. The Kofun and the subsequent Asuka periods are sometimes collectively called the Yamato period. This period is ...

(250 – 538) AD. Hino District belonged to Hōki Province, a former old province of

that covered the western part of present-day Tottori Prefecture. The district is described in the '' Izumo Fudoki'', a detailed 8th-century record of the culture and geography of

Izumo Province was an Old provinces of Japan, old province of Japan which today consists of the eastern part of Shimane Prefecture. It was sometimes called . The province is in the Chūgoku region. History During the early Kofun period (3rd century) this reg ...

. The '' Wamyō Ruijushō'', a 10th-century

Japanese dictionary have a history that began over 1300 years ago when Japanese Buddhist priests, who wanted to understand Chinese sutras, adapted Chinese character dictionaries. Present-day Japanese lexicographers are exploring computerized editing and electronic d ...

, records that the district consisted of six villages by the time 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 Kammu, moved the capital of Japan to Heian-kyō (modern Kyoto). means in Japanese. It is a ...

(794 – 1185). From the middle of the

Kamakura period The is a period of History of Japan, Japanese history that marks the governance by the Kamakura shogunate, officially established in 1192 in Kamakura, Kanagawa, Kamakura by the first ''shōgun'' Minamoto no Yoritomo after the conclusion of the G ...

to the end of the

Nanboku-chō period The , also known as the Northern and Southern Courts period, was a period in Japanese history between 1336-1392 CE, during the formative years of the Ashikaga shogunate, Muromachi (Ashikaga) shogunate. Ideologically, the two courts fought for 50 ...

, from roughly the 13th to 14th centuries, the district was controlled by the Hino and Kamonamochi clans. Various clans took control of the district in 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 ...

(1467 – 1573), but the area was ultimately unified under the

Ikeda clan was a Japanese clan that claimed descent from Minamoto no Yorimitsu (948-1021) of the Seiwa Genji. Minamoto no Yasumasa, the fourth generation descending from Yorimitsu, and younger brother of Minamoto no Yorimasa (1104-1180), was the first to ...

, who ruled from Tottori Castle in present-day Tottori City. At the beginning of 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 ...

(1603 – 1868) the district had 173 villages; by the end of the period, they numbered 165. Hino District was noted for the production of

iron Iron is a chemical element; it has symbol Fe () and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, forming much of Earth's o ...

steel Steel is an alloy of iron and carbon that demonstrates improved mechanical properties compared to the pure form of iron. Due to steel's high Young's modulus, elastic modulus, Yield (engineering), yield strength, Fracture, fracture strength a ...

, and

tobacco Tobacco is the common name of several plants in the genus '' Nicotiana'' of the family Solanaceae, and the general term for any product prepared from the cured leaves of these plants. More than 70 species of tobacco are known, but the ...

in the Edo period. In 1858 Hino was separated into two districts, but records from the period indicate the borders of the area were, in general, poorly defined. Under the administrative reforms 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 ...

(1868 – 1912) Hino District was re-established, and in 1889 consisted of 29 villages. Through various mergers the district now consists of only three municipalities.

Geography

Hino District stretches from roughly Mount Sentsū to the upper and middle reaches of the

Hino River The is a major river in the western part of Tottori Prefecture. The river flows east-northeast for , and is the longest river in the prefecture. The Hino River emerges from the Chūgoku Mountains. The source of the river is at an elevation of i ...

. The small plains in the valleys around the Hino River have been developed for

rice Rice is a cereal grain and in its Domestication, domesticated form is the staple food of over half of the world's population, particularly in Asia and Africa. Rice is the seed of the grass species ''Oryza sativa'' (Asian rice)—or, much l ...

production.

Merger

*On January 1, 2005 the town of Mizokuchi merged with the town of Kishimoto, from Saihaku District, to form the new town of Hōki, in Saihaku District.

Towns and villages

* Hino *

Kōfu is the capital Cities of Japan, city of Yamanashi Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 187,985 in 90,924 households, and a population density of 880 persons per km2. The total area of the city is . Overview Toponymy Kōfu ...

* Nichinan

References

Districts in Tottori Prefecture {{Tottori-geo-stub