280px, Kawai Town Office gardens 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 Kitakatsuragi District,

Nara Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Kansai region of Honshu. Nara Prefecture has a population of 1,321,805 and has a geographic area of . Nara Prefecture borders Kyoto Prefecture to the north, Osaka Prefecture to the ...

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 16,636 in 7968 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 2000 persons per km². The total area of the town is .

Geography

Kawai is located in the flatlands of northeast Nara Prefecture in the

Nara Basin The Nara Basin (奈良盆地 ''Nara-bonchi''), also known as the Yamato Basin (大和盆地 ''Yamato-bonchi''), is a valley in the north-western part of Nara Prefecture, Japan. It has an area of roughly . It is surrounded on four sides by mountai ...

Surrounding municipalities

* Ōji * Kanmaki * Kōryō *

Ikaruga is a bullet hell shoot 'em up developed by Treasure. It is the spiritual sequel to '' Radiant Silvergun'' (1998) and was originally released in Japanese arcades in December 2001. The story follows a rebel pilot named Shinra as he battles an e ...

* Kawanishi * Miyake * Ando

Climate

Kawai 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 to no snowfall. The average annual temperature in Kawai is 14.6 °C. The average annual rainfall is 1636 mm with September as the wettest month. The temperatures are highest on average in August, at around 26.7 °C, and lowest in January, at around 3.1 °C. Kawai climate: Average Temperature, weather by month
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Demographics

Per Japanese census data, the population of Kawai is as shown below

History

The area of Kawai was part of ancient

Yamato Province was a province of Japan, located in Kinai, corresponding to present-day Nara Prefecture in Honshū. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric (2005). "Yamato" in . It was also called . Yamato consists of two characters, 大 "great", and 和 " Wa". At first, th ...

, and many

kofun are megalithic tombs or tumulus, tumuli in Northeast Asia. ''Kofun'' were mainly constructed in the Japanese archipelago between the middle of the 3rd century to the early 7th century AD.岡田裕之「前方後円墳」『日本古代史大辞 ...

burial mounds A tumulus (: tumuli) is a mound of earth and stones raised over a grave or graves. Tumuli are also known as barrows, burial mounds, mounds, howes, or in Siberia and Central Asia as ''kurgans'', and may be found throughout much of the world. ...

are located within the town. From the 11th to the 14th century, the area was a ''

shōen A was a field or Manorialism, manor in Japan. The Japanese language, Japanese term comes from the Tang dynasty Chinese language, Chinese term "莊園" (Mandarin: ''zhuāngyuán'', Cantonese: ''zong1 jyun4''). Shōen, from about the 8th to th ...

'' landed estate controlled by the temple of

Tōdai-ji is a Buddhist temple complex that was once one of the powerful Nanto Shichi Daiji, Seven Great Temples, located in the city of Nara, Nara, Nara, Japan. The construction of the temple was an attempt to imitate Chinese temples from the much-admir ...

. The village of Kawai was established on April 1, 1889 with the creation of the modern municipalities system. It was elevated to town status on December 1, 1971.

Government

Kawai 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. Kawai, collectively with the other municipalities of Kitakatsuragi District, contributes three members to the Nara Prefectural Assembly. In terms of national politics, the town is part of the

Nara 2nd district Nara 2nd district (奈良2区 ''Nara ni-ku'', more formally 奈良県第2区 ''Nara-ken dai-ni-ku'') is a single-member electoral district for the House of Representatives, the lower house of the National Diet of Japan, located in Nara Prefecture ...

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

The local economy is based on agriculture and light manufacturing.

Education

Kawai has two public elementary schools and Two public junior high school operated by the town government and one public high school operated by the Nara Prefectural Board of Education. There is also one private high school.

Transportation

Railways

20px

Kintetsu Railway , referred to as and officially Kinki-Nippon Railway, is a Japanese passenger railway company, managing infrastructure and operating passenger train service. Its railway system is the largest in Japan, excluding Japan Railways Group. The railw ...

Tawaramoto Line The is a railway line owned and operated by the Kintetsu Railway, a Japanese private railway company, connecting Ōji Station (Nara) ( Ōji, Nara Prefecture) and Nishi-Tawaramoto Station ( Tawaramoto, Nara Prefecture) in Japan. The line doe ...

: 16px - -

Highways

Nishi-Meihan Expressway is a national expressway in the Kinki region of Japan. It is owned and operated by West Nippon Expressway Company. Naming Meihan is a kanji acronym of two characters. The first character represents Nagoya (名古屋) and the second charact ...

Sister cities

* Majuro, Marshall Islands

Local attractions

* Nagareyama Kofun, National Historic Site * Samida Takarazuka Kofun, National Historic Site * Ōtsukayama Kofun Cluster, National Historic Site

References

External links

*
Kawai official website
Towns in Nara Prefecture Kawai, Nara {{Nara-geo-stub