was 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
Isawa District,
Iwate Prefecture
is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Tōhoku region of Honshu. It is the second-largest Japanese prefecture (behind Hokkaido) at , with a population of 1,165,886 (as of July 1, 2023). Iwate Prefecture borders Aomori Pre ...
,
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 ...
. It is currently part of the city of
Ōshū. Isawa is well known for its
capsicum
''Capsicum'' () is a genus of flowering plants in the Solanum, nightshade family Solanaceae, native to the Americas, cultivated worldwide for their edible fruit, which are generally known as "peppers" or "capsicum". Chili peppers grow on five s ...
(green pepper).
The name of the area is derived from the ancient
Isawa tribe of
Emishi who had put up fierce resistance to the Yamato court and its imperial aspirations. Isawa village proper was created on April 1, 1955 through the merger of the villages of Oyama, Natsuta and Wakayanagi. It was raised to town status on April 1, 1967. On February 20, 2006, Isawa, was merged with the cities of
Esashi and
Mizusawa, the town of
Maesawa, and the village of
Koromogawa (both from
Isawa District), was merged to create the city of
Ōshū, and no longer exists as an independent
municipality
A municipality is usually a single administrative division having municipal corporation, corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate.
The term ''municipality' ...
.
As of February 2006, 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 17,297 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 58.04 persons per km
2. The total area was 298.02 km
2.
External links
Ōshū official website
Dissolved municipalities of Iwate Prefecture
Ōshū, Iwate
{{Iwate-geo-stub