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 Kawabe District in

Hyōgo Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Kansai region of Honshu. Hyōgo Prefecture has a population of 5,469,762 () and a geographic area of . Hyōgo Prefecture borders Kyoto Prefecture to the east, Osaka Prefecture to th ...

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 29,579 in 12,552 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 330 persons per km². The total area of the town is .

Geography

Inagawa is located in the southeastern part of Hyōgo Prefecture. Although it is a relatively short distance of 25 kilometers in a straight line from Osaka Station and

Umeda Station is a major railway station in Kita-ku, Osaka, Kita-ku in the northern commercial center of Osaka, Japan. It is the busiest station in western Japan, serving 2,343,727 passengers daily in 2005. Umeda Station is served by the following railways: ...

, which are the terminal stations of the Kansai region in downtown

Osaka is a Cities designated by government ordinance of Japan, designated city in the Kansai region of Honshu in Japan. It is the capital of and most populous city in Osaka Prefecture, and the List of cities in Japan, third-most populous city in J ...

, Inagawa retains the atmosphere of an old village with forests and rural scenery. The southern part of the town forms part of the Tada Basin, one of the prominent basins in Hyōgo Prefecture that continues into neighboring Kawanishi. A lot of nature remains in the northern part, and

firefly The Lampyridae are a family of elateroid beetles with more than 2,000 described species, many of which are light-emitting. They are soft-bodied beetles commonly called fireflies, lightning bugs, or glowworms for their conspicuous production ...

, Japanese giant salamander and forest tree frogs inhabit. In addition, the Inagawa Astronomical Observatory Astropia is located within the Ono Alpsland, the area around the summit of Mt. Oya, the highest peak in the Hanshin region at an altitude of 753 meters. The mascot of Inagawa is Inabō (いなぼう), a character of a

wild boar The wild boar (''Sus scrofa''), also known as the wild swine, common wild pig, Eurasian wild pig, or simply wild pig, is a Suidae, suid native to much of Eurasia and North Africa, and has been introduced to the Americas and Oceania. The speci ...

Surrounding municipalities

Hyōgo Prefecture * Kawanishi * Sanda * Takarazuka * Tamba-Sasayama Osaka Prefecture *

Nose A nose is a sensory organ and respiratory structure in vertebrates. It consists of a nasal cavity inside the head, and an external nose on the face. The external nose houses the nostrils, or nares, a pair of tubes providing airflow through the ...

Climate

Inagawa 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 snowfall. The average annual temperature in Inagawa is 14.0 °C. The average annual rainfall is 1583 mm with September as the wettest month. The temperatures are highest on average in January, at around 25.8 °C, and lowest in January, at around 2.6 °C.

Demographics

Per Japanese census data, the population of Inagawa has quadrupled since the 1970s. The population growth rate for Inagawa is the highest in the nation, with numerous housing development planned and completed. In southern part of Inagawa, there are three large

new town New or NEW may refer to: Music * New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz (South Korean band), The Boyz * New (album), ''New'' (album), by Paul McCartney, 2013 ** New (Paul McCartney song), "New" (Paul McCartney song), 2013 * New (EP), ''New'' (EP), ...

s, the Hankyu-Nissei Newtown (阪急日生ニュータウン), Inagawa Parktown (猪名川パークタウン), and Tsutsujigaoka (つつじが丘) and are located on the centre of Inagawa.

History

The area of Inagawa was part of ancient Settsu Province. The Tada silver mine has been in operation since the

Nara period The of the history of Japan covers the years from 710 to 794. Empress Genmei established the capital of Heijō-kyō (present-day Nara). Except for a five-year period (740–745), when the capital was briefly moved again, it remained the capita ...

. 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 ...

, this area was '' tenryo'' territory under the 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 ...

. The villages of Nakatani (中谷村) and Mutsuse (六瀬村) were established on April 1, 1889 with the creation of the modern municipalities system. The two villages merged on April 10, 1955 to form the town of Inagawa.

Government

Inagawa 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 16 members. Inagawa, together with the city of Kawanishi, contributes three members to the Hyōgo Prefectural Assembly. In terms of national politics, the town is part of Hyōgo 5t 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

Since the closure of the Tada Silver Mine in 1973, Inagawa is largely a

commuter town A commuter town is a populated area that is primarily residential rather than commercial or industrial. Routine travel from home to work and back is called commuting, which is where the term comes from. A commuter town may be called by many o ...

for neighboring Nishikawa and Osaka.

Education

Inagawa has six public elementary schools and two public middle school operated by the town government, and one public high school operated by the Hyōgo Prefectural Board of Education.

Transportation

Railways

Nose Electric Railway - Nissei Line *

Highway

Shin-Meishin Expressway The or simply ''Shin-Meishin'' for short is an expressway, linking Mie prefecture to Hyōgo Prefecture, which is partially open and partially under construction. The expressways current length as of February 2008 is 49.7 km. It connects t ...

Sister cities

Ballarat Ballarat ( ) () is a city in the Central Highlands of Victoria, Australia. At the 2021 census, Ballarat had a population of 111,973, making it the third-largest urban inland city in Australia and the third-largest city in Victoria. Within mo ...

, Victoria, Australia

Local attractions

* Tada Silver and Copper Mine (多田銀銅山) is located in the southern part of Inagawa. It is claimed, with some uncertainty, that

Toyotomi Hideyoshi , otherwise known as and , was a Japanese samurai and ''daimyō'' (feudal lord) of the late Sengoku period, Sengoku and Azuchi-Momoyama periods and regarded as the second "Great Unifier" of Japan.Richard Holmes, The World Atlas of Warfare: ...

's treasures are buried there.

Notable people from Inagawa

* Eriko Hirose (廣瀬栄理子) * Tatsuya Ikeda (池田達也), professional football player *Nobuyuki Mori (森信行), musician *Maiko Nakaoka (中岡麻衣子), professional football player *Ayumu Yamamoto (山本歩), professional football player

References

External links

*
Inagawa official website
Towns in Hyōgo Prefecture {{Hyogo-geo-stub