Ugo Town

Dancing in scrap kimono, faces hidden.

Hanui, Nishimonai Bon Odori

Photo by Rufiyaa (CC BY-SA 4.0)

01 ／ Main halls

Late Muromachi and early Edo,two main halls stand in one precinct.

Miwa Shrine has two main halls that are Important Cultural Properties. The Miwa Shrine main hall, in the sangensha nagare-zukuri style, dates from the late Muromachi period; the main hall of Suga Shrine, a subsidiary shrine in the grounds, is irimoya-zukuri, entered through the gable end, and dates from the early Edo period. Both were designated in 1954. The tourist association says the present Miwa hall is thought to be late Muromachi, judging from a record that it escaped a fire in 1562, among other evidence.

Miwa Shrine main hall: late Muromachi
Suga Shrine main hall: early Edo
Important Cultural Property, 1954

02 ／ Electric car

Local residents and former driversset out to save a train left in the rain.

Deha 3 is a wooden electric passenger car that ran on the Ogachi Line, which linked Ugo and Yuzawa from 1928 to 1973. After the line closed it was given to a nursery school and left in the rain to decay. In 1983 residents and former drivers spent two months or so restoring it. It was brought back so close to its original state that people say it would run if power were sent through it, and it now sits in a garage the town built.

Ogachi Line, 1928-1973
1983: preservation begins
About two months of restoration

03 ／ Farmhouse

A farmhouse, yet described as recallinga local powerful family's residence.

The Suzuki House is an Important Cultural Property. Its thatched, hipped-roof main house dates from 1601 to 1700 by the Agency for Cultural Affairs' reckoning. The Agency's commentary says it has something of a local powerful family's residence about it rather than an ordinary farmhouse. It adds that the two-storey front wing and the rear storehouse (1915) were added later, and that the house seems to have begun as a chokuya, a straight-plan house without wings.

Main house: 1601-1700
Important Cultural Property, 1973
Storehouse: 1915

Living here

No station here; a bus from Yuzawa.

about 10,000 people
Rural district town

There is no railway station in the town; the town's guide names JR Yuzawa Station (Ōu Main Line) as the nearest. From the stop in front of Yuzawa Station, the Ugo Kotsu bus (Nishimonai Line) takes 20 to 24 minutes to Hashiba in Nishimonai. Ogachi Line electric trains once called at Nishimonai Station.

People living here: 13,825people
Area: 230.78km²
Households: 4,658households
Rent (average for rentals): —
Healthcare: 1 hospital ／ 6 clinics

Area and habitable land at the same scalee-Stat B1101 / B1103

Children waiting for childcare: —4 nurseries and similar
Home purchase subsidy: —
Average annual temperature: —

These 3 items are waiting on a nationwide data source. We do not fill them with estimates.

Shape

Borders 3 municipalities.

Ugo Town in Japan39.199°N 140.413°E

Territory of Ugo Town

Boundaries: National Land Numerical Information (N03)Lakes: National Land Numerical Information (Lake Data), MLIT. Processed by Machigatari. Prepared with the approval of the Director-General of the Geospatial Information Authority of Japan, using its Digital Map 25000 (Spatial Data Framework) and Digital Map 25000 (Place Names and Public Facilities). (承認番号平27情使、第585号)

North to south

20.2km

由利本荘市, 湯沢市, 横手市

Travel times per leg are not published by the municipality, so they are not shown.

Ugo Town isthis kind of town.

01In Nishimonai Bon Odori, a nationally designated Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property, women dance in hanui, kimono sewn together from scraps of cloth, with their faces hidden under straw hats
02Miwa Shrine has main halls of the late Muromachi and early Edo periods, both Important Cultural Properties, and the wooden electric car Deha 3 of the old Ogachi Line is kept by local residents and former drivers
03The Suzuki House is an Important Cultural Property whose thatched main house dates from 1601 to 1700 by the Agency for Cultural Affairs; the town has no railway station, and the nearest is said to be JR Yuzawa

See the town as it is now.

FacebookUgoTownOffice ↗

Source: Wikidata (P2002, P2003, P2013, P2397)

If something caught your eye, ask the town itself.

Ugo Town official site ↗Wikipedia ↗