Tsuwano, Shimane
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Tsuwano 津和野町 |
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| Tsuwano's location in Shimane, Japan. | |
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| Tsuwano's location in Japan. | |
| Location | |
| Country |  Japan |
| Region | Chūgoku (San'in) |
| Prefecture | Shimane |
| District | Kanoashi |
| Physical characteristics | |
| Area | 307.09 km2 (118.57 sq mi) |
| Population (as of January 2008) | |
| Total | 9,014 |
| Density | 29.4 /km2 (76 /sq mi) |
| Location | 34°28′N 131°46′E / 34.467°N 131.767°ECoordinates: 34°28′N 131°46′E / 34.467°N 131.767°E |
| Symbols | |
| Tree | Camphor Laurel |
| Flower | Farfugium japonicum |
| Bird | Ural owl |
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| Tsuwano Government Office | |
| Mayor | Iwao Nakashima |
| Address | 54-25 Nichihara, Tsuwano-chō, Kanoashi-gun, Shimane-ken 699-5292 |
| Phone number | 0856-74-0021 |
| Official website: Town of Tsuwano | |
Tsuwano (津和野町 Tsuwano-chō) is a town in Kanoashi District, Shimane prefecture, Japan. As of 2003, the town has an estimated population of 8,878 and a density of 28.9 persons per km². The total area is 307.09 km².
Tsuwano is remotely located and surrounded by hills. Though geographically closer to Yamaguchi, the capital of Yamaguchi Prefecture, it is situated in Shimane Prefecture. A train trip to Matsue, Shimane’s capital, takes as long as four hours. Due to its proximity to the border to neighboring Yamaguchi, many tourists who come to Tsuwano also visit Hagi on the Sea of Japan and Yamaguchi at the same time, and Tsuwano is often mistaken as being located in Yamaguchi prefecture for this reason.
Popularly called the "Little Kyoto of San-In," Tsuwano is known for its picturesque mainstreet, "Tono-machi," which is lined with Edo-era buildings and Koi ponds. It also boasts one of the oldest still in use "Yabusame" (horse back archery) ranges in all of Japan, and its annual Yabusame festival is a large tourist draw for the San-In region.
On September 252005, the town of Nichihara merged into Tsuwano.
Tsuwano is somewhat unusually home to two Catholic churches. The Catholic church in Tsuwano itself is dedicated to Saint Francis Xavier, who visited Japan as a missionary in 1549–50, and is located on its mainstreet. The church at Otome Pass is part of a memorial for Christians persecuted and tortured in Tsuwano by the government during the Edo and Meiji periods.
Other notable locations and tourist attractions within Tsuwano include the ruins of Tsuwano Castle, where the Kamei clan once ruled the Tsuwano fiefdom from the 17th through mid 19th-centuries, and the famed mountainside Taikodani Inari Shrine with its "1000 vermillion torii gates." In 1773 Tsuwano's seventh generation feudal lord Kamei Norisada had Taikodani Inari built to enshrine a share of the spirit worshipped at the Fushimi Inari in Kyoto. This shrine was built to pray for the safety of Kamei's castle and peace among his people.
[edit] Famous people
Novelist Mori Ōgai was born in Tsuwano into a family of doctors, and the house of his birth is preserved. Mori studied medicine in Germany and led the adoption of German medical practices into the Japanese military. In commemoration, Tsuwano became a sister city of Berlin's central ward under an agreement signed August 25, 1995. His tomb is located in Yomei Temple in Tsuwano, which was built in 1420 and is known as one of 2 great Soto sect temples, the other being Daijo-ji Temple in Kanazawa.
Philosopher Nishi Amane, another leading light of Japan’s modernization in the Meiji periods, was also born in Tsuwano. His ancestors were doctors for the daimyo of the fief.
Tsuwano has two new art galleries to celebrate artistic sons. One, the Anno Art Museum (opened in 2001), is dedicated to Mitsumasa Anno, who was also born and raised in Tsuwano. The other is the Shisei Kuwabara Photographics Museum, the name since April 1, 2004 of what was previously the Tsuwano Documentary Photograph Gallery; this features photographs by and is named after Shisei Kuwabara, famous for his work in Minamata and Korea.
Rie Fujii is also from Tsuwano.
[edit] Yamaguchi-gō steam locomotive
A popular tourist destination, Tsuwano is served by the steam locomotive Yamaguchi-gō, which runs once daily on weekends, national holidays, and certain other days between March and November (daily in August) on the Yamaguchi Line from Shin-Yamaguchi Station to Tsuwano and back.[1] It stops for about three hours in Tsuwano before returning to Shin-Yamaguchi station. The train is usually pulled by a C57 locomotive, but a C56 does the job on several weekdays between July and September, and both engines are linked in a double-header configuration on weekends in August. Carriages are decorated in the styles of three Japanese eras—Meiji, Taisho, and Showa—as well as in European style, and the rear-most carriage has an outdoor observation deck.
A scene in director Masahiro Shinoda’s Spy Sorge, a 2003 movie about Soviet spy Richard Sorge, was shot on the train for period effect.
