260px, Joso Bridge across the Tone River at Kawachi 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

Ibaraki Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Ibaraki Prefecture has a population of 2,828,086 (1 July 2023) and has a geographic area of . Ibaraki Prefecture borders Fukushima Prefecture to the north, ...

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 city 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 8,298 in 2986 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 183 persons per km². The percentage of the population aged over 65 was 39.5%. The total area of the city is .

Geography

Located in extreme southern Ibaraki Prefecture bordering Chiba Prefecture, Kawachi is long and narrow east-west, and bordered by the

Tone River The is a river in the Kantō region of Japan. It is in length (the second longest in Japan after the Shinano River) and has a drainage area of (the largest in Japan). It is nicknamed Bandō Tarō (); ''Bandō'' is an obsolete alias of the ...

and Shin-Tone River.

Surrounding municipalities

Chiba Prefecture * Kōzaki * Narita * Sakae Ibaraki Prefecture * Inashiki * Ryūgasaki * Tone

Climate

Kawachi 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 cold ...

(Köppen ''Cfa'') characterized by warm summers and cool winters with light snowfall. The average annual temperature in Kawachi is 14.4 °C. The average annual rainfall is 1376 mm with September as the wettest month. The temperatures are highest on average in August, at around 26.1 °C, and lowest in January, at around 3.6 °C.

Demographics

Per Japanese census data, the population of Kawachi has declined in recent decades and is now less than it was a century ago.

History

The villages of Nagasao, Genseida, and Mamaita were created within Kawachi District, Ibaraki Prefecture the establishment of the modern municipalities system on April 1, 1889. At the same time, the village of Kanaetsu from Katori District, Chiba and a portion of Toyosumi Village in Shimohabu District, Chiba were transferred to Ibaraki Prefecture. The border between ancient

Hitachi Province was an old provinces of Japan, old province of Japan in the area of Ibaraki Prefecture.Louis Frédéric, Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "''Hitachi fudoki''" in . It was sometimes called . Hitachi Province bordered on Shimōsa Province, S ...

and

Shimōsa Province was a province of Japan in the area of modern Chiba Prefecture and Ibaraki Prefecture as well as the bordering parts of Saitama Prefecture and Tokyo (the parts that used to be located east of the lower reaches of the old Tone River prior to the ...

was the Tone River; however, due to shifting of the riverbed by 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 ...

, it was located on the north bank of the river. The three villages originally from Hitachi Province were merged to form the village of Kawachi on April 1, 1955. On February 15, 1958, the neighboring village of Kanaetsu was annexed to Kawachi.

Government

Kawachi 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 12 members. Kawachi, together with neighboring Inashiki, contributes one member to the Ibaraki Prefectural Assembly. In terms of national politics, the town is part of Ibaraki 3rd 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

Education

Kawachi Gakuen is the only compulsory education combined elementary and junior high school in Kawachi. The academy was established by integrating two junior high schools in 2017 and three elementary schools in 2018. The town does not have a senior high school.

Transportation

Railway

*Kawachi does not have any passenger train service. The nearest stations are in neighboring Narita and in neighboring Ryūgasaki.