290px, Nishiki Town Hall 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 Kuma District,

Kumamoto Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located on the island of Kyūshū. Kumamoto Prefecture has a population of 1,748,134 () and has a geographic area of . Kumamoto Prefecture borders Fukuoka Prefecture to the north, Ōita Prefecture t ...

, Japan. , 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 10,046 in 3975 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 49 persons per km². The total area of the town is . The town's name is the Japanese word for "

brocade Brocade () is a class of richly decorative shuttle (weaving), shuttle-woven fabrics, often made in coloured silks and sometimes with gold and silver threads. The name, related to the same root as the word "broccoli", comes from Italian langua ...

", and is used as a name for more than one town in Japan.

Geography

Nishiki is located in the southern part of Kumamoto prefecture, approximately 70 kilometers south-southeast of the prefectural capital at

Kumamoto, Kumamoto is the capital city of Kumamoto Prefecture on the island of Kyushu, Japan. , the city has an estimated population of 738,907 and a population density of 1,893 people per km2. The total area is 390.32 km2. had a population of 1,461,000, ...

. The northern portion of the town lies in flat terrain that forms part of the ''Hitoyoshi Basin''; the Kuma River borders the town to the east and west. The southern reaches of the Kyushu Mountains adjoins one corner of the town limits. The southernmost corner of the townsland meets the prefectural border with

Miyazaki Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located on the island of Kyūshū. Miyazaki Prefecture has a population of 1,028,215 as of 1 January 2025 and has a geographic area of 7,735 Square kilometre, km2 (2,986 sq mi). Miyazaki Prefectur ...

Neighboring municipalities

Kumamoto Prefecture * Asagiri * Hitoyoshi * Sagara Miyazaki Prefecture * Ebino

Climate

Nishiki 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 Nishiki is 14.7 °C. The average annual rainfall is 2328 mm with September as the wettest month. The temperatures are highest on average in August, at around 25.0 °C, and lowest in January, at around 3.7 °C.Nishiki climate: Average Temperature, weather by month
/ref>

Demographics

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

History

The area of Nishiki was part of ancient Higo Province, 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 ...

it was part of the holdings of Hitoyoshi Domain. After the

Meiji restoration The , referred to at the time as the , and also known as the Meiji Renovation, Revolution, Regeneration, Reform, or Renewal, was a political event that restored Imperial House of Japan, imperial rule to Japan in 1868 under Emperor Meiji. Althoug ...

, the villages of Ichibu, Nishi and Kinoue were established with the creation of the modern municipalities system on April 1, 1889. The three villages were merged on July 1, 1955 to form the village of Nishiki, which was elevated to town status on April 1, 1965.

World War II

During the closing years of the Second World War, a major base of the

Imperial Japanese Navy The Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN; Kyūjitai: Shinjitai: ' 'Navy of the Greater Japanese Empire', or ''Nippon Kaigun'', 'Japanese Navy') was the navy of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945, Potsdam Declaration, when it was dissolved followin ...

's Hitoyoshi Naval Air Group was located near the town. Relatively little is currently known about the base and its operations due to a loss of records and institutional memory both during and after the war. The remains of the base extend over of land, and houses underground facilities in more than 10 locations, including an

operations room A control room or operations room is a central space where a large physical facility or physically dispersed service can be monitored and controlled. It is often part of a larger command center. Overview A control room's purpose is prod ...

and a large

torpedo A modern torpedo is an underwater ranged weapon launched above or below the water surface, self-propelled towards a target, with an explosive warhead designed to detonate either on contact with or in proximity to the target. Historically, such ...

preparation area. In 2015, a full archeological survey of the site was initiated by the municipal government via the Nishiki

board of education A board of education, school committee or school board is the board of directors or board of trustees of a school, local school district or an equivalent institution. The elected council determines the educational policy in a small regional area, ...

to discover more about the base and its past, with a view to eventually opening it up to tourism. This followed the discovery by the local government of a copy of a

floor plan In architecture and building engineering, a floor plan is a technical drawing to scale, showing a view from above, of the relationships between rooms, spaces, traffic patterns, and other physical features at one level of a structure. Dimensio ...

for the base.

Government

Nishiki 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 11 members. Nishiki, collectively with the other municipalities of Kuma District, contributes two members to the Kumamoto Prefectural Assembly. In terms of national politics, the town is part of the Kumamoto 4th 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 ...

Flag

The current town flag was adopted in 1956, however there is no formal flag law codifying this.Nishiki Town (Kumamoto prefecture, Japan) 錦町 – Flags of the World
/ref> The flag is green with a town emblem in the center. The emblem is a stylized

katakana is a Japanese syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with hiragana, kanji and in some cases the Latin script (known as rōmaji). The word ''katakana'' means "fragmentary kana", as the katakana characters are derived fr ...

ニNi of Nishiki. The circle "symbolizes a reconciliation and the mountain, the river and the sun do the town located in the center of Kuma Basin which is expanding to the future".

Economy

The town's economy is primarily based around agriculture (primarily

pear Pears are fruits produced and consumed around the world, growing on a tree and harvested in late summer into mid-autumn. The pear tree and shrub are a species of genus ''Pyrus'' , in the Family (biology), family Rosaceae, bearing the Pome, po ...

peach The peach (''Prunus persica'') is a deciduous tree first domesticated and Agriculture, cultivated in China. It bears edible juicy fruits with various characteristics, most called peaches and the glossy-skinned, non-fuzzy varieties called necta ...

and

rice Rice is a cereal grain and in its Domestication, domesticated form is the staple food of over half of the world's population, particularly in Asia and Africa. Rice is the seed of the grass species ''Oryza sativa'' (Asian rice)—or, much l ...

cultivation) and leisure tourism activities such as golf holidays, though the Nishiki plant of Renesas Semiconductor (formerly

NEC is a Japanese multinational information technology and electronics corporation, headquartered at the NEC Supertower in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. It provides IT and network solutions, including cloud computing, artificial intelligence (AI), Inte ...

Kumamoto) is also a major contributor. The Nishiki plant specializes in LSI

manufacturing Manufacturing is the creation or production of goods with the help of equipment, labor, machines, tools, and chemical or biological processing or formulation. It is the essence of the secondary sector of the economy. The term may refer ...

. The total economic output of Nishiki for

fiscal year A fiscal year (also known as a financial year, or sometimes budget year) is used in government accounting, which varies between countries, and for budget purposes. It is also used for financial reporting by businesses and other organizations. La ...

2004 was ¥40.7 billion yen.

Education

Nishiki has three public elementary schools and one public junior high schools operated by the town government, and two public high schools operated by the Kumamoto Prefectural Board of Education.

Transportation

Railway

Kumagawa Railroad - Yunomae Line * - -

Highway

Notes

References

External links

*
Nishiki official website
* 熊本県の市町村旗一覧 (Municipality Flag List of Kumamoto Prefecture) Japanese Wikipedia {{Authority control Towns in Kumamoto Prefecture 1965 establishments in Japan Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service Archaeological sites in Japan Contemporary archaeology