270px, Kaiyō Town Office 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 Kaifu District,

Tokushima Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located on the island of Shikoku. Tokushima Prefecture has a population of 682,439 (1 February 2025) and has a geographic area of 4,146 Square kilometre, km2 (1,601 sq mi). Tokushima Prefecture b ...

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 8,699 in 4488 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 27 persons per km². The total area of the town is .

Geography

Kaiyō is located in the southeastern corner of Tokushima Prefecture on the island of

Shikoku is the smallest of the List of islands of Japan#Main islands, four main islands of Japan. It is long and between at its widest. It has a population of 3.8 million, the least populated of Japan's four main islands. It is south of Honshu ...

. It is bordered by the Kii Channel to the southeast and Kochi Prefecture to the southwest. Parts of the town are within the borders of the Chūbu Sankei Prefectural Natural Park.

Neighbouring municipalities

Kōchi Prefecture * Kitagawa * Tōyō * Umaji Tokushima Prefecture * Minami *

Mugi In cryptography, MUGI is a pseudorandom number generator (PRNG) designed for use as a stream cipher. It was among the cryptographic techniques recommended for Japanese government use by CRYPTREC in 2003, however, has been dropped to "candidate" ...

* Naka

Climate

Kaiyō 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 climate classification The Köppen climate classification divides Earth climates into five main climate groups, with each group being divided based on patterns of seasonal precipitation and temperature. The five main groups are ''A'' (tropical), ''B'' (arid), ''C'' (te ...

''Cfa'') with hot summers and cool winters. Precipitation is high, but there is a pronounced difference between the wetter summers and drier winters. The average annual temperature in Kaiyō is . The average annual rainfall is with June as the wettest month. The temperatures are highest on average in August, at around , and lowest in January, at around . The highest temperature ever recorded in Kaiyō was on 23 August 2013; the coldest temperature ever recorded was on 9 January 2021.

Demographics

Per Japanese census data, the population of Kaiyō in 2020 is 8,358 people. Kaiyō has been conducting censuses since 1920.

History

As with all of Tokushima Prefecture, the area of Kaiyō was part of ancient Awa Province. It was noted for ocean-borne shipping, especially of timber, from

Tosa Province was a province of Japan in the area of southern Shikoku. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "''Tosa''" in . Tosa bordered on Awa to the northeast, and Iyo to the northwest. Its abbreviated form name was . In terms of the Gokishichidō syst ...

to the

Kinai region is a Japanese term denoting an ancient division of the country. ''Kinai'' is a name for the ancient provinces around the capital Nara and Heian-kyō. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "''Kinai''" in . The five provinces were called ''go-kina ...

. During 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 ...

, the area was part of the holdings of

Tokushima Domain was a feudal domain under the Tokugawa shogunate of Edo period Japan, controlling all of Awa Province and Awaji Province in what is now Tokushima Prefecture and Awaji Island of modern-day Hyōgo Prefecture. It was centered around Tokushima ...

ruled by the Hachisuka clan from their seat at

Tokushima Castle was an Edo period Japanese castle located in the city of Tokushima, Tokushima Prefecture, Japan. Its ruins have been protected as a National Historic Site since 1957. Its Omotegoten Gardens are designated a national Place of Scenic Beauty. Hi ...

. The area was divided into villages within Kaifu District, Tokushima with the creation of the modern municipalities system on October 1, 1889. The town of Kaiyō was founded on March 31, 2006 from the merger of the towns of Kaifu, Kainan, and Shishikui, all from Kaifu District.

Government

Kaiyō 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 14 members. Kaiyō, together with the other municipalities of Kaifu District, contributes two members to the Tokushima Prefectural Assembly. In terms of national politics, the town is part of Tokushima 1st 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

Kaiyō has a mixed economy of 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 ...

Education

Kaiyō has three public elementary schools and two public middle schools operated by the town government and one public high school operated by the Tokushima Prefectural Department of Education.

Transportation

Railway

Shikoku Railway Company The , commonly known as , is the smallest of the seven constituent companies of the Japan Railways Group (JR Group). It operates of intercity and local rail services in the four prefectures on the island of Shikoku in Japan. The company has it ...

–

Mugi Line The is a railway line in southeastern Tokushima Prefecture, Japan, owned and operated by Shikoku Railway Company (JR Shikoku). It connects the prefectural capital of Tokushima with the town of Kaiyō in Kaifu District. The line's official ni ...

* - -

Asa Kaigan Railway Asa may refer to: People and fictional characters * Asa (given name), a given name, including a list of people and fictional characters so named * Asa people, an ethnic group based in Tanzania * Aṣa, Nigerian-French singer, songwriter, and reco ...

–

Asatō Line The is a Japanese railway line connecting Kaifu Station, Kaiyō, Tokushima, Kaiyō and Kannoura Station, Tōyō, Kōchi, Tōyō. Together with JR Shikoku's Mugi Line, it has the official nickname . This is the only railway line operated by . Th ...

* -

Highways

* *

Local attractions

* Chūbu Sankei Prefectural Natural Park

Noted people from Kaiyō

* Toshiharu Ueda, baseball player and coach

References

External links

* Towns in Tokushima Prefecture Populated coastal places in Japan {{Tokushima-geo-stub