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

Kagoshima Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located on the island of Kyushu and the Ryukyu Islands. Kagoshima Prefecture has a population of 1,527,019 (1 February 2025) and has a geographic area of 9,187 Square kilometre, km2 (3,547 Square m ...

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 was founded on October 1, 1958. , 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 13,114 in 7236 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 81 persons per km². The total area of the city is .>

Geography

Tarumizu is located in the northwest of the

Ōsumi Peninsula image:Osumi Peninsula Kagoshima Japan SRTM.jpg, 261x261px, Satellite image of Ōsumi Peninsula The projects south from the Japanese island of Kyūshū and includes the southernmost point on the island, Cape Sata. Its east coast lies on the Pacifi ...

, facing

Kagoshima Bay also known as Kinkō Bay, is a deep inlet of the East China Sea on the coast of Japan.''Merriam Webster's Geographical Dictionary, Third Edition'', p. 562. Kagoshima Bay is on the south coast of the island of Kyūshū. The port city of Kagoshi ...

and Kagoshima City to the east. The city center is developed on low-lying land along the coast, and the inland area to the east of the city area consists of Shirasu Plateau and mountains.

Sakurajima Sakurajima (, ) is an active composite volcano, stratovolcano, formerly an island and now a peninsula, in Kagoshima Prefecture in Kyushu, Japan. The lava flows of the 1914 eruption connected it with the Ōsumi Peninsula. It is the most active vo ...

, which was once an island, became connected to Tarumizu after the Great Taisho eruption of Sakurajima in 1914, but is administratively part of Kagoshima city and not Tarumizu.

Neighboring municipalities

Kagoshima Prefecture *

Kagoshima , is the capital Cities of Japan, city of Kagoshima Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 583,966 in 285,992 households, and a population density of 1100 persons per km2. The total area of the city is . Etymology While the ...

* Kanoya * Kirishima

Climate

Tarumizu 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 Tarumizu is 16.3 °C. The average annual rainfall is 2260 mm with September as the wettest month. The temperatures are highest on average in August, at around 25.9 °C, and lowest in January, at around 6.3 °C.

Demographics

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

History

The area of Tarumizu was part of ancient

Ōsumi Province was a province of Japan in the area of southeastern Kyūshū, corresponding to the eastern half of modern Kagoshima Prefecture, and including the Ōsumi Islands . Ōsumi bordered on Hyūga to the northeast, and Satsuma Province to the nor ...

, and was part of theb holding of

Satsuma Domain The , briefly known as the , was a Han system, domain (''han'') of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan during the Edo period from 1600 to 1871. The Satsuma Domain was based at Kagoshima Castle in Satsuma Province, the core of the modern city of ...

in 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 ...

. 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 village of Tarumizu was established with the creation of the modern municipalities system on April 1, 1889. Tarumizu was raised to town status on April 1, 1924 and to city status on October 1, 1958. In February 1944, the ''Tarumizu Maru'', a passenger ferry, set sail for

and capsized within minutes. 466 passengers were reported dead.

Government

Tarumizu 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 14 members. Tarumizu, collectively with the city of Kanoya contributes four members to the Kagoshima Prefectural Assembly. In terms of national politics, the city is part of the Kagoshima 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 ...

Economy

Tarumizu has a primary economy centering on agriculture, fishing, livestock raising and food processing.

Education

Tarumizu has eight public elementary schools and one public junior high school operated by the city government and one public high school operated by the Kagoshima Prefectural Board of Education. There is also one private high school. The city also hosts

Nagoya University , abbreviated to or NU, is a Japanese national research university located in Chikusa-ku, Nagoya. It was established in 1939 as the last of the nine Imperial Universities in the then Empire of Japan, and is now a Designated National Universit ...

's Solar-Terrestrial Environment Laboratory.

Transportation

Railway

Tarumizu has been without passenger rail services, after the closure of the in 1987. The nearest station is Kagoshima-Chūō Station on the

Kyushu Shinkansen The is a Japanese Shinkansen high-speed railway network. It is an extension of the San'yō Shinkansen from Honshu connecting the city of Fukuoka (Hakata Station) in the north of Japan's Kyushu Island to the city of Kagoshima (Kagoshima-Chuo Sta ...

Highway

* *

References

External links

Tarumizu City official website

Kagoshima Prefectural Visitors Bureau official website
* * Cities in Kagoshima Prefecture Populated coastal places in Japan {{Kagoshima-geo-stub