270px, Tonami-yotaka festival held in June is a

city A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be def ...

located in

Toyama Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region of Honshu. Toyama Prefecture has a population of 1,044,588 (1 June 2019) and has a geographic area of 4,247.61 km2 (1,640.01 sq mi). Toyama Prefecture borders Ishikawa Prefecture to the ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

. , the city had an estimated

population Population typically refers to the number of people in a single area, whether it be a city or town, region, country, continent, or the world. Governments typically quantify the size of the resident population within their jurisdiction using a ...

of 93,447 in 37,734 households and a

population density Population density (in agriculture: 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 geographical term.Matt RosenberPopul ...

of 850 persons per km². Its total area was .

Geography

Imizu is located in the Tonami plains of western Toyama Prefecture, with a coastline on 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 h ...

to the north. Much of the area is a

dispersed settlement A dispersed settlement, also known as a scattered settlement, is one of the main types of settlement patterns used by landscape historians to classify rural settlements found in England and other parts of the world. Typically, there are a numb ...

typical of this region of Japan. Himi 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 freezing ...

(Köppen ''Cfa'') characterized by mild summers and cold winters with heavy snowfall. The average annual temperature in Imizu is 14.0 °C. The average annual rainfall is 2380 mm with September as the wettest month. The temperatures are highest on average in August, at around 26.5 °C, and lowest in January, at around 2.7 °C.

Surrounding municipalities

*Toyama Prefecture **

Toyama Toyama may refer to: Places and organizations * Toyama Prefecture, a prefecture of Japan located in the Hokuriku region on the main Honshu island * Toyama, Toyama, the capital city of Toyama Prefecture * Toyama Station, the main station of Toyama, ...

** Takaoka **

Tonami 270px, Tonami-yotaka festival held in June is a city in Toyama Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 48,659 in 16,739 households and a population density of 384 persons per km². Its total area was . Geography Tonami i ...

Demographics

Per Japanese census data, the population of Imizu has remained relatively steady in recent decades.

History

The area of present-day Imizu was part of ancient

Etchū Province was a province of Japan in the area that is today Toyama Prefecture in the Hokuriku region of Japan. Etchū bordered on Noto and Kaga Provinces to the west, Shinano and Hida Provinces to the south, Echigo Province to the east and the Sea ...

, and was governed during the

Edo period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional '' daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was characteriz ...

as part of

Kaga Domain The , also known as the , was a domain of the Tokugawa Shogunate of Japan during the Edo period from 1583 to 1871.

. The modern city of Imizu was established on November 1, 2005, from the merger of the city of Shinminato, the towns of

Daimon Daimon or Daemon ( Ancient Greek: , "god", "godlike", "power", "fate") originally referred to a lesser deity or guiding spirit such as the daimons of ancient Greek religion and mythology and of later Hellenistic religion and philosophy. The wor ...

, Kosugi and Ōshima, and the village of Shimo (all from Imizu District). Imizu District was dissolved as a result of this merger.

Government

Imizu 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, which consists of one house or assembly, that legislates and votes as one. Unicameral legislatures exist when there is no widely perceived need for multic ...

city legislature of 22 members.

Economy

Businesses headquartered in Imizu

Albis The Albis is a chain of hills in the Canton of Zürich, Switzerland, stretching for some 19 km from Sihlbrugg in the south to Waldegg near Zürich in the north. The chain forms, among others, the border between the Affoltern and Horgen di ...

, a retail and wholesale company. * Toyo Gas Meter

Education

Colleges and universities

* Toyama Prefectural University * Toyama College of Welfare Science *

Toyama National College of Technology is a college of technology in Toyama and Imizu, Toyama Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region of Honshu. Toyama Prefecture has a population of 1,044,588 (1 June 2019) and has a geographic area of 4,247.61 km2 (1, ...

(Imizu Campus)

Primary and secondary education

Imizu has fifteen public elementary schools and six public middle schools operated by the town government, and three public high schools operated by the Toyama Prefectural Board of Education. The prefectural also operates two vocational schools in Imizu.

Transportation

Railway

* 22px

Ainokaze Toyama Railway The is a Japanese third-sector railway operating company established in 2012 to operate passenger railway services on the section of the JR West Hokuriku Main Line within Toyama Prefecture when it was separated from the JR West network in Mar ...

** - * Man'yōsen Shinminatokō Line ** - * Man'yōsen Shinminatokō Line ** - - - - - - -

Highway

Hokuriku Expressway The , (abbreviated as , is a 4-laned national expressway in Japan. It is owned and managed by East Nippon Expressway Company and Central Nippon Expressway Company. Overview The first section was opened in 1972 by Japan Highway Public Corpo ...

* * *

Local attractions

*Kaiwomaru Park, with the

training Training is teaching, or developing in oneself or others, any skills and knowledge or Physical fitness, fitness that relate to specific practicality, useful Competence (human resources), competencies. Training has specific goals of improving on ...

tall ship A tall ship is a large, traditionally- rigged sailing vessel. Popular modern tall ship rigs include topsail schooners, brigantines, brigs and barques. "Tall ship" can also be defined more specifically by an organization, such as for a race or fe ...

'' Kaiwo Maru''. * Kosugimaruyama Site, an archaeological park with the ruins of a late

Asuka period The was a period in the history of Japan lasting from 538 to 710 (or 592 to 645), although its beginning could be said to overlap with the preceding Kofun period. The Yamato polity evolved greatly during the Asuka period, which is named after t ...

pottery production site. It is a National Historic Site. * Kushidashin Site, an archaeological park containing the remnants of a late

Jōmon period The is the time in Japanese history, traditionally dated between 6,000–300 BCE, during which Japan was inhabited by a diverse hunter-gatherer and early agriculturalist population united through a common Jōmon culture, which reached a c ...

settlement and two circular

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 ...

burial mound Burial, also known as interment or inhumation, is a method of final disposition whereby a dead body is placed into the ground, sometimes with objects. This is usually accomplished by excavating a pit or trench, placing the deceased and objec ...

s. It is a National Historic Site.

Noted people from Imizu

* Matsutaro Shoriki, media mogul, politician, and the father of Japanese professional baseball. *

Atsushi Yanagisawa is a Japanese former professional footballer who played as a forward. He played for Japan national team. He is best known for playing the majority of his career at Kashima Antlers, in addition to his spells with Italian sides Sampdoria and ...

, professional football player. *

Shinosuke Tatekawa is a rakugo performer. His real name is . With his comic group, Rokunin-no-Kai (Group of Six), formed in 2003, he has helped to popularise rakugo among young Japanese people. He is also well known as a TV presenter, and has presented the primeti ...

rakugo is a form of ''yose'', which is itself a form of Japanese verbal entertainment. The lone sits on a raised platform, a . Using only a and a as props, and without standing up from the seiza sitting position, the rakugo artist depicts a long ...

performer, and TV presenter. *

Bungo Tsuda was a Japanese politician. He served as governor of Kanagawa Prefecture from April 23, 1967 until April 22, 1975. Tsuda was born in Kosugi, Toyama and died at the age of 89 of colorectal cancer in Yokohama is the second-largest city in ...

, politician. * Megumi Tachimoto, judoka

References

External links

* * {{Toyama Cities in Toyama Prefecture Populated coastal places in Japan