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

Nagano Prefecture is a Landlocked country, landlocked Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region of Honshu. Nagano Prefecture has a population of 2,007,682 () and has a geographic area of . Nagano Prefecture borders Niigata Prefecture ...

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 11,045 in 4892 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 23 persons per km². The total area of the town is . Kiso Town is listed as one of The Most Beautiful Villages in Japan.

Geography

Kiso is located in mountainous southwest Nagano Prefecture, bordered by

Gifu Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region of Honshu. Gifu Prefecture has a population of 1,910,511 () and has a geographic area of . Gifu Prefecture borders Toyama Prefecture to the north; Ishikawa Prefecture ...

to the west.

Surrounding municipalities

Gero Gero I ( 900 – 20 May 965), sometimes called the Great (),Thompson, 486. Also se was a nobleman from East Francia who ruled an initially modest march centred on Merseburg in the south of the present German state of Saxony-Anhalt, which he ...

** Takayama *Nagano Prefecture ** Agematsu ** Ina ** Kiso (village) ** Matsumoto ** Miyada ** Ōtaki ** Shiojiri

Climate

The town has a climate characterized by characterized by warm and humid summers, and cold winters with heavy snowfall (

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 ...

''Dfb''). The average annual temperature in Kiso is . The average annual rainfall is with July as the wettest month. The temperatures are highest on average in August, at around , and lowest in January, at around .

History

The area of present-day Kiso was part of ancient

Shinano Province or is an old province of Japan that is now Nagano Prefecture. Shinano bordered Echigo, Etchū, Hida, Kai, Kōzuke, Mikawa, Mino, Musashi, Suruga, and Tōtōmi Provinces. The ancient capital was located near modern-day Matsumoto, whi ...

. The modern town was created through a merger of the town of Kiso-Fukushima with the villages of Hiyoshi, Kaida and Mitake on November 1, 2005.

Demographics

Per Japanese census data,Kiso population statistics
/ref> the population of Kiso has decreased rapidly over the past 60 years and is now less than half of what it was in 1940.

Education

Kiso has four public elementary schools and three public middle schools operated by the town government, and one high school operated the Nagano Prefectural Board of Education. The prefectural also operates a special education school. The Solar-Terrestrial Environment Laboratory,

Nagoya University , abbreviated to or NU, is a Japanese national research university located in Chikusa-ku, Nagoya. It was established in 1939 as the last of the nine Imperial Universities in the then Empire of Japan, and is now a Designated National Universit ...

is located in Kiso. Kurokawa Elementary School opened in 1928 and closed in 1997; in 2022 it became a museum showcasing wooden toys.

Transportation

Railway

* JR Tōkai – Chūō Main Line ** - -

Highway

* *

Local attractions

* Mount Ontake

References

External links

*
Official Website
Towns in Nagano Prefecture Long stubs with short prose {{Nagano-geo-stub