Kotake Town

The stone chamber splits into two rooms.

Gōya Kofun

Photo by Muyo (CC BY-SA 4.0)

01 ／ Arco No. 23 and Freight Car Roto No. 39 (アルコ23号・貨車ロト39号)

A locomotive hauled wagons of mountain sandto fill in the mine tunnels after digging.

Arco No. 23 was imported from the United States in 1920 and ran until 1976. It carried mountain sand from Iizuka, by way of Kotake, to a pit in Miyawaka (大之浦抗), to backfill tunnels after mining; it was called the "filling train" (充填列車). It was restored in November 2019 and stands in the sports park's open field.

Kotake Town Designated Cultural Property No. 4
Imported 1920; ran until 1976
Restored November 2019

02 ／ Narazu Lion Dance (南良津獅子舞)

An offering to celebrate eight years of good harvestsis said to be its beginning.

It is said to have begun in Hōreki 2 (1752), when a lion dance was offered at the autumn "Okunchi" to celebrate eight straight years of good harvests. Since then it has been danced during summer prayers. To flute and drum, it has four forms (前楽, 古楽, 道楽 and 出端).

Kotake Town Designated Cultural Property No. 2
Hōreki 2 (1752)
Four forms

03 ／ Kotake Botakan Ekiden (こたけボタカン駅伝)

On the spoil heap of a former colliery (旧古河目尾炭鉱),teams pass the sash for four hours.

Local volunteers started this relay wanting "to create a specialty of the town." With talk of using the spoil heap (bota-yama, ボタ山) site owned by Furukawa Co., Ltd., teams circle a 1 km loop and compete in laps run in four hours. It has been held every May.

1 km loop, 4 hours
2025: 34 teams, 275 people
Ages 6 to 83 took part

Living here

The Onga River runs north through the middle of town.

about 7,000 people
Rural district town

Kotake lies in the central part of Fukuoka Prefecture, in the southeast of Kurate District (鞍手郡), bordering Nogata, Iizuka and Miyawaka. The JR Fukuhoku Yutaka Line has Kotake and Katsuno stations, and the town gives about 60 minutes to Fukuoka Airport. The area code was the five-digit 09496 until it changed to 0949 on March 1, 2022.

People living here: 7,151people
Area: 14.28km²
Households: 3,210households
Rent (average for rentals): —
Healthcare: 1 hospital ／ 6 clinics

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

Children waiting for childcare: —1 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.

Kotake Town in Japan33.693°N 130.713°E

Territory of Kotake Town

Boundaries: National Land Numerical Information (N03)

North to south

5.6km

宮若市, 飯塚市, 直方市

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

Kotake Town isthis kind of town.

01Gōya Kofun (合屋古墳) is a round tomb with a corridor-style stone chamber built in the late 6th century; the chamber divides into front and rear rooms. The town designated it its No. 1 cultural property and describes it as the only stone-chamber tomb remaining in the town.
02Arco No. 23 is a steam locomotive that carried sand for backfilling the tunnels of the Kaijima coal mine; the town records that only Arco Nos. 22 and 23 survive in Japan among Arco-built locomotives, and that No. 22 is in Miyawaka. The Narazu lion dance and the relay run on the spoil heap site are also events of this town.
03The town's name is said to come from bamboo thickets along the old highway, which gave the place the name "the place of small bamboo" (小竹の処). A prefectural magazine says the area along the old Nagasaki Kaidō (長崎街道) was selected for "Beautiful Japan's 500 Walkable Roads" (美しい日本の歩きたくなる道500選). The town also has a county boundary stone said to date from the Edo period and the restored puppet of the Meiji-period puppet troupe (勝楽舎).

If something caught your eye, ask the town itself.

Kotake Town official site ↗Wikipedia ↗