is a

district A district is a type of administrative division that in some countries is managed by the local government. Across the world, areas known as "districts" vary greatly in size, spanning regions or county, counties, several municipality, municip ...

located in

Aomori Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan in the Tōhoku region. The prefecture's capital, largest city, and namesake is the city of Aomori (city), Aomori. Aomori is the northernmost prefecture on Japan's main island, Honshu, and is border ...

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 occupies most of the northern handle of

Shimokita Peninsula The is the remote northeastern cape of the Japanese island of Honshū, stretching out towards Hokkaido. Overview It is bordered by the Pacific Ocean to the east, Tsugaru Strait to the north and Mutsu Bay to the west and south. Shaped like an ...

with the exception of Mutsu City and contains the most northern point on the island of

Honshū , historically known as , is the largest of the four main islands of Japan. It lies between the Pacific Ocean (east) and the Sea of Japan (west). It is the seventh-largest island in the world, and the second-most populous after the Indonesian ...

. It is also home to the

Japanese macaque The Japanese macaque (''Macaca fuscata''), also known as the snow monkey, is a terrestrial Old World monkey species that is native to Japan. Colloquially, they are referred to as "snow monkeys" because some live in areas where snow covers the g ...

, making it the northernmost natural habitat for monkeys anywhere in the world. As of 2009, the district has 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 18,297 and a

density Density (volumetric mass density or specific mass) is the ratio of a substance's mass to its volume. The symbol most often used for density is ''ρ'' (the lower case Greek letter rho), although the Latin letter ''D'' (or ''d'') can also be u ...

of 33.2 persons per km². The total area was 551.08 km².

Politics

In terms of national politics, the district is represented in 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 ...

House of Representatives House of Representatives is the name of legislative bodies in many countries and sub-national entities. In many countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corresponding upper house often ...

as a part of the

Aomori 1st district Aomori 1st district (青森県第1区, ''Aomori-ken dai-ikku'' or simply 青森1区, ''Aomori-ikku'') is a single-member constituency of the House of Representatives in the national Diet of Japan. It is located in Northern Aomori and covers the ...

Towns and villages

The district consists of one town and three villages. The city of Mutsu was formerly part of the district. *

Ōma is a town located in Aomori, Japan. , the town had an estimated population of 4,868 in 2,500 households, and a population density of . The total area of the town is . Geography Ōma occupies the northwestern coastline of Shimokita Peninsula, f ...

Higashidōri is a List of villages in Japan, village located in Aomori Prefecture, Aomori, Japan. , the village had an estimated population of 5,913 in 2829 households, and a population density of 20 persons per km2. Its total area is . Geography Higashid� ...

* Kazamaura * Sai

History

Shimokita District was part of ancient , established by the

Northern Fujiwara The Northern Fujiwara (奥州藤原氏 ''Ōshū Fujiwara-shi'') were a Japanese noble family that ruled the Tōhoku region (the northeast of Honshū) of Japan during the 12th century as their own realm.

. 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 ...

, the area was part of the Morioka han feudal domain of the

Nanbu clan The was a Japanese clan, Japanese samurai clan who ruled most of northeastern Honshū in the Tōhoku region of Japan for over 700 years, from the Kamakura period through the Meiji Restoration of 1868. The Nanbu claimed descent from the Seiwa Ge ...

, with a

daikansho A was the office of a ''daikan'' (magistrate) during the Edo period (18th & 19th century) of Japanese history. External links Edo period Legal history of Japan {{japan-gov-stub ...

located in Tanabu (now part of the city of Mutsu. The Nanbu clan sided with the

Ōuetsu Reppan Dōmei The was a Japanese military-political coalition established and disestablished over the course of several months in early to mid-1868 during the Boshin War. Its flag was either a white interwoven five-pointed star on a black field, or a black ...

during the

Boshin War The , sometimes known as the Japanese Revolution or Japanese Civil War, was a civil war in Japan fought from 1868 to 1869 between forces of the ruling Tokugawa shogunate and a coalition seeking to seize political power in the name of the Impe ...

of 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 ...

and were punished by the new

Meiji government The was the government that was formed by politicians of the Satsuma Domain and Chōshū Domain in the 1860s. The Meiji government was the early government of the Empire of Japan. Politicians of the Meiji government were known as the Meiji ...

by loss of their northern territories. In November 1869, Kita-gun and neighboring Sannohe District became part of the newly created , a 30,000

koku The is a Chinese-based Japanese unit of volume. One koku is equivalent to 10 or approximately , or about of rice. It converts, in turn, to 100 shō and 1,000 gō. One ''gō'' is the traditional volume of a single serving of rice (before co ...

holding created to resettle the dispossessed

Matsudaira clan The was a Japanese samurai clan that descended from the Minamoto clan. It originated in and took its name from Matsudaira village, in Mikawa Province (modern-day Aichi Prefecture). During the Sengoku period, the chieftain of the main line of the ...

from

Aizu-Wakamatsu is a city in Fukushima Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 118,159 in 50,365 households, and a population density of 310 persons per km2. The total area of the city was . History The area of present-day Aizuwakamatsu w ...

. In July 1871, with the

abolition of the han system The in the Empire of Japan and its replacement by a system of prefectures in 1871 was the culmination of the Meiji Restoration begun in 1868, the starting year of the Meiji period. Under the reform, all daimyos (, ''daimyō'', feudal lords) ...

, Tonami Domain became Tonami Prefecture, and was merged into the newly created Aomori Prefecture in September 1871. During the early

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 ...

administrative reorganization of Japan on July 22, 1878, Shimokita and Kamikita were divided from former Kita County, and Shimokita was divided into 33 villages. In the cadastral reform of April 1, 1889, the number of villages was reduced through consolidations and mergers to nine.

District Timeline

* On January 1, 1899 - The village of Tanabu was elevated to town status. * On October 31, 1917 - The village of Kawauchi was elevated to town status. * On November 10, 1928 - 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 ...

port of Ōminato was elevated to town status. * On May 1, 1934 - The village of Ōhata was elevated to town status. * On November 3, 1942 - The village of

was elevated to town status. * On September 1, 1959 - The towns of Ōminato and Tanabu merged to create the city of Ōminato-Tanabu, later renamed Mutsu.

District Background

Recent mergers

* On March 14, 2005 - The towns of Kawauchi and Ōhata and the village of Wakinosawa were merged into the expanded city of Mutsu.

References

{{coord, 41, 17, N, 141, 13, E, display=title Districts in Aomori Prefecture