Hanamaki, Iwate

Encyclopedia : H : HA : HAN : Hanamaki, Iwate

Hanamaki (花巻市; -shi) is a city located in Iwate, Japan. As of 2005, the Hanamaki Central area of the city has an estimated total population of 106,414. Hanamaki is most famous as the birthplace of Kenji Miyazawa and for its onsen. The city recently celebrated the 50th anniversary since its consolidation from six smaller towns in 1954. Hanamaki as of 2006 is composed of the old Hanamaki city and three surrounding towns, which merged on January 1.

Contents

1 History
2 Geography
3 Demographics
4 Transportation
5 Tourist attractions
6 City connections
7 External links

History

Kenji Miyazawa was born in Hanamaki in 1896, where he spent most of his life. Miyazawa’s invented Esperanto word Ihatov refers to Iwate prefecture in general, and is agreed to refer more specifically to Hanamaki itself.

On April 1, 1954 six towns consolidated into the former city of Hanamaki. Those seven towns (in rough order of size category) were: Hanamaki-cho, Yuguchi-mura, Yumoto-mura, Miyanome-mura, Yasawa-mura, and Ohta-mura. An additional seventh town, Sasama-mura, joined the following year.

In January 2006 Hanamaki again cosolidated with three neighboring towns, Towa-cho, Ohasama-machi, and Ishidoriya-cho to establish a new city also called Hanamaki. With the merger, the population of Hanamaki increased from 72,926 to 106,414 people, and its geographic area expanded from 385.40 km² to encompass 908.32 km².

Geography

Hanamaki is located in the southern half of Iwate prefecture, along the valley which runs north-south through the length of the prefecture. The Tohoku shinkansen line passes through Hanamaki. The total city area is 908.32 km².

Demographics

The city has an estimated population of 106,414 as of 2005. The population density of pre-merger Hanamaki as of 2003 was 189.22 persons per km².

Transportation

Regular JR trains, both those going north-south along the Tohoku Main Line as well as those heading east to the coast on the Kamaishi line stop at Hanamaki Station. Shin Hanamaki station, which is on the Kamaishi line and significantly removed from the town center, is a stop on the Tohoku Shinkansen.

Hanamaki Airport has flights to Sapporo, Nagoya, Osaka, and Fukuoka.

A night bus travels between Hanamaki and Tokyo.

Tourist attractions

Hanamaki is known historically for its many onsen. It also has a number of ski slopes.

One of Hanamaki's most notable events is the Hanamaki Matsuri, an annual festival which takes place the second weekend of September and dates back to 1593. The three-day festivities include a dance of over one thousand synchronized traditional dancers; the carrying of over one hundred small shrines; and the parading of a dozen or so large, hand-constructed floats depicting historical, fictional, or mythical scenes and accompanied by drummers, floutists, and lantern-carriers.

City connections

Hanamaki is sister cities with Hot Springs, Arkansas. Within Japan, Hanamaki is sister cities with Towada-shi in Aomori and with Hiratsuka-shi in Kanagawa.

External links

[Hanamaki official website] in Japanese
[Hanamaki International Exchange Association] website in English

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.