260px, Takaishi Shrine is a

city A city is a human settlement of a substantial size. The term "city" has different meanings around the world and in some places the settlement can be very small. Even where the term is limited to larger settlements, there is no universally agree ...

located in

Osaka Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kansai region of Honshu. Osaka Prefecture has a population of 8,778,035 () and has a geographic area of . Osaka Prefecture borders Hyōgo Prefecture to the northwest, Kyoto Prefecture to the north, Nara ...

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 city 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 55,232 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 4,888 persons per km². The total area of the city is .

Geography

Takaishi is located in the south-central part of Osaka Prefecture, bordered by

Osaka Bay Osaka Bay (大阪湾 ''Ōsaka-wan'' ) is a bay in western Japan. As an eastern part of the Seto Inland Sea, it is separated from the Pacific Ocean by the Kii Channel and from the neighbor western part of the Inland Sea by the Akashi Strait. I ...

to the west, Sakai City ( Nishi Ward ) to the northeast, and Izumi City and Izumiotsu City to the south. Almost the entire city area is flat and is completely urbanized. Roughly 6.1 kilometers east–west by 4.1 kilometers north–south, it is the second smallest city in terms of area in Osaka prefecture after Fujiidera. The western half of the city is

reclaimed land Land reclamation, often known as reclamation, and also known as land fill (not to be confused with a waste landfill), is the process of creating new land from oceans, seas, riverbeds or lake beds. The land reclaimed is known as reclamatio ...

and is part of the Sakai Senboku Seaside Industrial Zone. It is traversed by both the Ashida and Oji Rivers.

Neighboring municipalities

Osaka Prefecture * Izumi * Izumiōtsu *

Sakai is a city located in Osaka Prefecture, Japan. It has been one of the largest and most important seaports of Japan since the medieval era. Sakai is known for its '' kofun'', keyhole-shaped burial mounds dating from the fifth century. The ''kofun ...

Climate

Takaishi 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 Takaishi is 14.7 °C. The average annual rainfall is 1475 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 3.4 °C.

Demographics

Per Japanese census data,Takaishi population statistics
/ref> the population of Takaishi almost doubled in the 1960s and peaked in the 1980s, and has been declining since.

History

The area of the modern city of Takaishi was within ancient

Izumi Province :''The characters ''泉州'' are also used for the name of the Chinese city of Quanzhou''. was a Provinces of Japan, province of Japan in the area of southern Osaka Prefecture. It bordered on Kii Province, Kii to the south, Yamato Province, Ya ...

, and the place name "Takaishi" appears in the

Nara period The of the history of Japan covers the years from 710 to 794. Empress Genmei established the capital of Heijō-kyō (present-day Nara). Except for a five-year period (740–745), when the capital was briefly moved again, it remained the capita ...

Nihon Shoki The or , sometimes translated as ''The Chronicles of Japan'', is the second-oldest book of classical Japanese history. It is more elaborate and detailed than the , the oldest, and has proven to be an important tool for historians and archaeol ...

'' and other ancient works. 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 largely under the control of Kishiwada Domain. The village of Takaishi was established within Ōtori District, Osaka, with the creation of the modern municipalities system on April 1, 1889. On April 1, 1896, the area became part of Senboku District, Osaka. During the

Russo-Japanese War The Russo-Japanese War (8 February 1904 – 5 September 1905) was fought between the Russian Empire and the Empire of Japan over rival imperial ambitions in Manchuria and the Korean Empire. The major land battles of the war were fought on the ...

, a large

Prisoner-of-war camp A prisoner-of-war camp (often abbreviated as POW camp) is a site for the containment of enemy fighters captured as Prisoner of war, prisoners of war by a belligerent power in time of war. There are significant differences among POW camps, inte ...

was constructed on the coast of Takaishi, with an area of 430,000 square meters and a capacity to house 28,000 prisoners. The area is now a residential area. Takaishi was promoted to town status on January 1, 1915. The neighboring village of Toriishi was annexed on April 1, 1953. Takaishi was promoted to city status on November 1, 1966. The city experienced a severe financial crisis in the late 1990s and the mayor at that time attempted to merge the city with

. However, the merger became the major campaign issue in the following mayoral election, and was voted down in 2003 when the incumbent mayor lost in his bid for re-election.

Government

Takaishi 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 ...

city council of 16 members. Takaishi collectively with the city of Izumiōtsu and the town of Tadaoka contributes two members to the Osaka Prefectural Assembly. In terms of national politics, the city is part of Osaka 18th 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 ...

Economy

Takaishi is located in the Sakai Senboku Seaside Industrial Zone, with half the city area on

on the coast of

. The economy is dominated by heavy industry, notably petroleum refineries, petrochemical and chemical plants.

Education

Takaishi has seven public elementary schools and three public middle schools operated by the city government and one public high school operated by the Osaka Prefectural Department of Education. The city also has two private middle schools and two private high schools. A private university, the Hagoromo International University is also located in Takaishi.

Transportation

Railway

JR West , also referred to as , is one of the Japan Railways Group (JR Group) companies and operates in western Honshu. It has its headquarters in Kita-ku, Osaka. It is listed in the Tokyo Stock Exchange, is a constituent of the TOPIX Large70 index, ...

–

Hanwa Line The is a commuter rail line in the Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto Metropolitan Area, owned and operated by West Japan Railway Company (JR West). The 61.3 km (38.1 mi) line runs between Osaka and Wakayama, Japan and has a 1.7 km branchline ...

* *

Nankai Electric Railway is a private railway in Japan, founded in 1884. The name ''Nankai'' (which means "South Sea") comes from the company's routes along the Nankaidō, the old highway that ran south from the old capital, Kyoto, along the sea coast. Nankai predate ...

Nankai Main Line The is one of the two main railway lines of Japanese private railway company Nankai Electric Railway, together with Nankai Kōya Line, Kōya Line. The route is from Namba Station in south downtown of Osaka to Wakayamashi Station in Wakayama, Wa ...

* -

Nankai Takashinohama Line * - -

Highway

Bayshore Route The signed as Route B, is one of the routes of the Toll road, tolled Shuto Expressway system in the Greater Tokyo Area. The Bayshore Route is a stretch of toll highway that runs from the Kanazawa-ku, Yokohama, Kanazawa ward of Yokohama in th ...

Sister cities

* Lomita, California, United States, since October 1981

Local attractions

*Hamadera Park * Honmichi headquarters *Takaishi Danjiri Matsuri *Takaishi Shrine

References

External links

*
Takaishi City official website
{{Authority control Cities in Osaka Prefecture Populated coastal places in Japan Takaishi, Osaka