Minami-Echizen Town

A flightless beetle in one high pond.

Yasha diving beetle, Yashagaike

Photo by Alpsdake (CC BY-SA 3.0)

01 ／ Magochakushi charms

Four teahouses on the passhanded out charms against smallpox.

Yunoo Pass (湯尾峠) was laid out on the Hokuriku road by Shibata Katsuie in 1578. At the top stood Magochakushi Shrine (孫嫡子神社), believed to ward off smallpox, and four teahouses that handed out its protective charms. They appear in the Echizen Chiri Shinan (越前地理指南), compiled by the Fukui domain in 1685. When a new road and the railway came in the Meiji era the teahouses moved down the mountain, and in 2021 the pass became a national Place of Scenic Beauty.

Four teahouses
Recorded in 1685
Place of Scenic Beauty, 2021

02 ／ Imajō-juku

Snow screens under the eaves in winter,sword cuts from the Tengu-tō on a pillar.

Imajō-juku (今庄宿) began as a post town on the Hokuriku road in the early 17th century and from the Meiji era also thrived as a railway town. In winter, snow screens are set up under the eaves at the front of the townhouses. In 1864 the Mito Tengu-tō (水戸天狗党) rebels stayed a night here, and some houses still bear sword cuts on their pillars. The main house of the former Kyōtō residence (旧京藤家住宅), built around 1801, is among the oldest townhouses in the prefecture and became an Important Cultural Property in 2025.

Preservation district, 2021
Townhouse from c. 1801
Important Cultural Property, 2025

03 ／ Brewers and narcissus

The men went to Fushimi to brew sake;the women picked narcissus on the cliffs.

Nuka (糠) is a village of fishing and farming with little arable land. In winter, when the sea kept boats in harbour, the men went to brew sake as tōji master brewers in Fushimi in Kyoto and in Nada. The Echizen Nuka Tōji Guild (越前糠杜氏組合) was formed in 1911, and at its peak it had more than 1,500 members including nearby villages. Meanwhile the women picked the narcissus growing wild on the fault cliffs and sold them. In 2021 these narcissus fields became an Important Cultural Landscape.

Brewers' guild, 1911
Over 1,500 members
Important Cultural Landscape, 2021

Living here

Deep snow in Imajō's mountains, hardly any on the Kōno coast.

about 10,000 people
Rural district town

The town covers 343.69 km², 8.2% of Fukui Prefecture, and about 92% of it is forest. The Imajō area was designated a special heavy-snowfall area in 1976, while the coast around Kōno (河野), warmed by the Tsushima Current, gets almost no snow. The town has four stations on the Hapi-Line Fukui, and its gateway is Nanjō Station, near the town office. The Hokuriku Expressway has the Imajō IC and the Nanjō Smart IC.

People living here: 10,002people
Area: 343.69km²
Households: 3,266households
Rent (average for rentals): —
Healthcare: 0 hospitals ／ 8 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 6 municipalities across 2 prefectures.

Minami-Echizen Town in Japan35.835°N 136.194°E

Territory of Minami-Echizen Town

Boundaries: National Land Numerical Information (N03)

North to south

24.4km

Fukui Prefecture: 越前市, 池田町, 敦賀市, 越前町
Gifu Prefecture: 揖斐川町
Shiga Prefecture: 長浜市

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

Minami-Echizen Town isthis kind of town.

01The Yasha diving beetle (ヤシャゲンゴロウ), which the national government says lives only in Yashagaike Pond (夜叉ヶ池), spends its life in the 1,099 m pond without flying, though it has wings
02Yunoo Pass keeps the site of teahouses that handed out charms against smallpox, and Imajō-juku keeps snow-screened townhouses and sword cuts from the Tengu-tō
03In Nuka the men went to Fushimi and Nada as sake brewers while the women picked narcissus; in Kōno the houses of shipowners of the Kitamae ships (北前船) remain

See the town as it is now.

Facebookminamiechizen.town ↗

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

If something caught your eye, ask the town itself.

Minami-Echizen Town official site ↗Wikipedia ↗