Itoshima City

Records trace Nikko's torii stone here.

Kayasan Early-Modern Quarry Site

Photo by Hetare-man (CC BY-SA 3.0)

01 ／ Hirabaru Site

The bronze mirrors lay brokenat the four corners of the burial pit.

In 1965, digging a trench to plant mandarin trees turned up fragments of bronze mirrors. In Tomb No. 1, said to be a royal tomb of Ito-koku, the mirrors were found shattered at the four corners of the burial pit, 40 mirrors' worth. The city calls why they were broken a mystery.

National Treasure "Artifacts Excavated from the Hirabaru Square Moated Tomb, Fukuoka" (designated June 9, 2006)
Bronze mirrors: 40 in all (national)
Owned by the national government (Agency for Cultural Affairs); kept at the Ito-koku History Museum

02 ／ Fukae Kawamatsuri

Until the festival ends,Fukae's children do not swim in the sea.

Held at dawn on the first Sunday of July on Fukae beach to pray for the children's protection from drowning. An altar of bamboo is built, and after the rite the bamboo is set afloat in the sea as the children wade in. Fukae's children have a promise not to swim in the sea until this festival is over.

Prefectural Intangible Folk Cultural Property (designated March 17, 2015)
Every year at dawn on the first Sunday of July
Continuing since the Edo period (tourist association)

03 ／ Himeshima Bon Observances

Saying "Come to the other shore,"they carry the spirit boat out by fishing boat.

Himeshima, in the Genkai Sea, lies about 3 km northwest of the Itoshima Peninsula, with some 150 residents. In its Bon observances, from the night of August 9 to 15 by the new calendar, the spirit boat Saiho-maru (西方丸), one made by each house holding a first Bon and each of four small associations, is carried from the harbor by fishing boat out to sea and set afloat.

City Intangible Folk Cultural Property (designated March 31, 2025)
August 9 to late night of August 15, by the new calendar
One Saiho-maru made by each first-Bon house and each of four small associations

Living here

The city flower's color became the city's symbol color.

about 100,000 people

The hamabo (Hibiscus hamabo) grows wild along the Izumi River (the lower Raizan River) and elsewhere, and is Itoshima's city flower, with yellow blooms in early July; its color is among those named for the city's symbol color, yellow. The Izumi River colony, about 730 plants, is a prefectural Natural Monument, and a citizens' group keeps up weeding and litter collection.

People living here: 98,877people
Area: 215.69km²
Households: 37,792households
Rent (average for rentals): 54,544yen
Healthcare: 8 hospitals ／ 86 clinics

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

Children waiting for childcare: —16 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 across 1 prefectures.

Itoshima City in Japan33.557°N 130.196°E

Territory of Itoshima City

Boundaries: National Land Numerical Information (N03)

North to south

24.9km

Fukuoka Prefecture: 福岡市
Saga Prefecture: 唐津市, 佐賀市

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

Itoshima City isthis kind of town.

01Mount Kaya (Kayasan) is an isolated peak of 365 m in the northwest of the Itoshima Peninsula, also called Itoshima Fuji. On the slope at Shimamoroyoshi lie remains of an early-modern quarry, and documentary sources show that, for Kuroda Nagamasa's building of the great torii at Nikko Toshogu in 1618 (Genna 4), enormous stone was cut from this mountain. It became a city-designated historic site in March 2025 (Reiwa 7).
02On the coast are the Meoto Rocks of Sakurai Futamigaura, known for its sunsets, and Keya-no-Oto, a national Natural Monument. At the Banjo district of the Mikumo-Iwara Site, the second stone inkstone found in Japan was unearthed (two pieces), and at the Fuigo Taisai festival of Matsusue Goro Inari Shrine, women in hoods feel their way to each other in the blindfold women's sumo offering.
03A city facing the Genkai Sea, with the Itoshima Peninsula and the Sefuri mountains, it was formed in 2010 (Heisei 22) by the merger of Maebaru City and Nijo and Shima towns.

If something caught your eye, ask the town itself.

Itoshima City official site ↗Wikipedia ↗