is a

village A village is a human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand. Although villages are often located in rural areas, the term urban v ...

located in

Iwate Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Tōhoku region of Honshu. It is the second-largest Japanese prefecture (behind Hokkaido) at , with a population of 1,165,886 (as of July 1, 2023). Iwate Prefecture borders Aomori Pre ...

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 village 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 3,244, 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 21 persons per km² in 1,398 households. The total area of the village is .

Geography

Tanohata is a coastal mountainous community situated on the rocky

ria A ria (; , feminine noun derived from ''río'', river) is a coastal inlet formed by the partial submergence of an unglaciated river valley. It is a drowned river valley that remains open to the sea. Definitions Typically rias have a dendriti ...

Sanriku Coast along the

Pacific coast Pacific coast may be used to reference any coastline that borders the Pacific Ocean. Geography Americas North America Countries on the western side of North America have a Pacific coast as their western or south-western border. One of th ...

of Iwate. Parts of the village are within the borders of the

Sanriku Fukkō National Park is a national park extending along the Sanriku Coast of Japan from Hachinohe in Aomori Prefecture through Iwate Prefecture to Kesennuma in Miyagi Prefecture. The national park was created on 24 May 2013 and covers a land area of . History On ...

Neighboring municipalities

Iwate Prefecture * Fudai * Iwaizumi

Climate

Tanohata has a cold humid climate (

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 ...

''Cfa'') characterized by mild summers and cold winters. The average annual temperature in Tanohata is 10.1 °C. The average annual rainfall is 1201 mm with September as the wettest month and February as the driest month. The temperatures are highest on average in August, at around 22.6 °C, and lowest in January, at around -1.1 °C.

Demographics

Per Japanese census data, the population of Tanohata peaked around the year 1960 and has declined steadily over the past 60 years.

History

The area of present-day Tanohata was part of ancient Mutsu Province, dominated by the

Nambu clan The was a 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 Genji of Kai Pr ...

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 ...

, who ruled Hachinohe Domain under the

Tokugawa shogunate The Tokugawa shogunate, also known as the was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. The Tokugawa shogunate was established by Tokugawa Ieyasu after victory at the Battle of Sekigahara, ending the civil wars ...

. With the

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 ...

establishment of the modern municipalities system, the village of Tanohata was created within Kitahei District on April 1, 1889. Kitahei, Nakahei and Higashihei Districts were all merged into Minamihei District on March 29, 1896. The area is prone to

tsunami A tsunami ( ; from , ) is a series of waves in a water body caused by the displacement of a large volume of water, generally in an ocean or a large lake. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and underwater explosions (including detonations, ...

, with damage recorded as early as the 869 Sanriku earthquake. The 1611 Sanriku earthquake also caused major damage and the

1896 Sanriku earthquake The was one of the most destructive seismic events in Japanese history. The 8.5 magnitude earthquake occurred at 19:32 (local time) on June 15, 1896, approximately off the coast of Iwate Prefecture, Honshu. It resulted in two tsunami waves whic ...

destroyed most of the village, as did the

1933 Sanriku earthquake The occurred on the Sanriku coast of the Tōhoku region of Honshū, Japan on March 2 with a moment magnitude of 8.4. The associated tsunami caused widespread devastation. Earthquake The epicenter was located offshore, east of the city of ...

. In 1953, the national and prefectural governments targeted Fudai for consolidation with its southern neighbor, Tanohata, following the Law for the Consolidation of Cities, Towns and Villages ( "the great Shōwa mergers").

Merger Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are business transactions in which the ownership of a company, business organization, or one of their operating units is transferred to or consolidated with another entity. They may happen through direct absorpt ...

talks continued intermittently between 1955 and 1960. The Tanohata delegation was not in favor of the merger, but because of the pressure from the prefecture to implement the government directive, they felt they were not at liberty to directly reject the proposal. At a party in May 1960 to celebrate the end of the long merger negotiations, the mayor of Tanohata drunkenly insulted the delegates from Fudai in a final effort to scuttle the negotiations. The party was abandoned, and no further serious attempts were made to continue with the merger. The tsunami following the March 11

2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami On 11 March 2011, at 14:46:24 Japan Standard Time, JST (05:46:24 UTC), a 9.0–9.1 Submarine earthquake, undersea megathrust earthquake occurred in the Pacific Ocean, east of the Oshika Peninsula of the Tōhoku region. It lasted approx ...

completely destroyed more than 200 buildings in the village, killing 39 residents and also destroying 512 of the 565 vessels in the local fishing cooperative. The height of the tsunami was estimated at more than 10 meters at Shimanokoshi Station, which was completely washed away. In October 2013, a sign from the village was found washed up on Kahuku Beach,

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; ) is an island U.S. state, state of the United States, in the Pacific Ocean about southwest of the U.S. mainland. One of the two Non-contiguous United States, non-contiguous U.S. states (along with Alaska), it is the only sta ...

Government

Tanohata 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 ...

village council of 10 members. Tanohata, together with the city of Miyako, town of Iwaizumi and the villages of Fudai and Yamada, collectively contributes three seats to the Iwate Prefectural legislature. In terms of national politics, the village is part of Iwate 2nd 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

The local economy is based on

commercial fishing Commercial fishing is the activity of catching fish and other seafood for Commerce, commercial Profit (economics), profit, mostly from wild fisheries. It provides a large quantity of food to many countries around the world, but those who practice ...

and to a lesser extent on agriculture.

Education

Tanohata has one public elementary school and one public junior high school operated by the village government. The village does not have a high school.

Transportation

Railway

Sanriku Railway – Rias Line * -

Highway

* *

Local attractions

References

External links

Official Website
{{Authority control Villages in Iwate Prefecture Populated coastal places in Japan