is a

brackish Brackish water, sometimes termed brack water, is water occurring in a natural environment that has more salinity than freshwater, but not as much as seawater. It may result from mixing seawater (salt water) and fresh water together, as in estuari ...

lake located in the town of Yurihama,

Tottori Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Chūgoku region of Honshu. Tottori Prefecture is the List of Japanese prefectures by population, least populous prefecture of Japan at 538,525 (2023) and has a geographic area of . ...

in the

San'in Region The is an area in the southwest of Honshū, the main island of Japan. It consists of the northern part of the Chūgoku region, facing the Sea of Japan. Specifically, it is the two prefectures of Shimane Prefecture, Shimane and Tottori 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 ...

. It has a circumference of 12 kilometers and is separated from 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 ...

by a narrow coastal strip. Lake Tōgō was a cove in ancient Japan that gradually became separated from the sea by sedimentation to become a lake. It is now connected to the Sea of Japan through Hashizu River, which is about 2 kilometers long. The lake has a number of

hot spring A hot spring, hydrothermal spring, or geothermal spring is a Spring (hydrology), spring produced by the emergence of Geothermal activity, geothermally heated groundwater onto the surface of the Earth. The groundwater is heated either by shallow ...

s on its bed and around its circumference. The area has been inhabited since prehistoric times, and the Hashizu Kofun Cluster located between the lake and the sea is believed to have belonged to the local ruling family that ruled the port during the

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 ...

. Also in the area are a number of

onsen In Japan, are hot springs and the bathing facilities and Ryokan (inn), traditional inns around them. There are approximately 25,000 hot spring sources throughout Japan, and approximately 3,000 ''onsen'' establishments use naturally hot water ...

resorts.

References

Tōgō Yurihama, Tottori {{Tottori-geo-stub