Yoshitomi Town

A border-river bridge on brick piers

Yamakuni Bridge, completed 1934

Photo by sk01 (CC BY-SA 3.0)

01 ／ Kuwashio-no-mai and Kamizumo (細男舞・神相撲)

At Hachiman Kohyō Shrine, carved wooden deity figuresdance and wrestle once every four years.

Kuwashio-no-mai (細男舞) and Kamizumo (神相撲) are a national Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property. They have been offered at sea from a boat carrying the portable shrine, and in the shrine's dance hall (神舞殿). Held in August of Reiwa 6, the next is planned for August of Reiwa 10. The Oirokashi (乾衣祭) on August 6–7 each year is the airing of the figures' robes.

National Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property (January 11, 1983)
Held August, Reiwa 6; next planned August, Reiwa 10
47 carved wooden figures

02 ／ Water Divination at Tsubo Shrine (壷神社)

The amount of water in a jarforetells next year's rain, too much or too little.

Each year on October 14, a young man chosen from the parishioners of the local district (土屋) draws water from the Saigawa River in a wooden bucket, wearing only a loincloth, and the priest offers it to a jar where the deity dwells. It is said to have begun when a villager (土屋三郎右衛門) scooped up into a jar a star deity that fell from the sky in Kōan 4 (1281).

Autumn festival rite, every October 14
Town-designated Intangible Folk Cultural Property (April 1, 1985)
Tradition of Kōan 4 (1281)

03 ／ Domain Boundary Stones and the Okai River (藩界石・御界川)

The Okai River, once the line between the Nakatsu and Kokura domains,is still the line between Yoshitomi and Buzen.

Of the boundary stones that stood on either side of the Okai River (御界川), the one reading "From here east, Nakatsu territory" is at Yasaka Shrine and is a town-designated structure. The one reading "From here west, Kokura territory" remains in a private garden (in the 界木 district). The stones were made in the Hosokawa domain era.

Inscriptions: "From here east, Nakatsu territory" and "From here west, Kokura territory"
The Okai River is still the Yoshitomi–Buzen boundary
Stones from the Hosokawa domain era

Living here

Between the Yamakuni and Sai Rivers, Fukuoka's easternmost town.

about 7,000 people
Rural district town

Yoshitomi is the easternmost town in Fukuoka Prefecture, facing Nakatsu in Ōita across the Yamakuni River to the east and the Suō-nada Sea to the north. It belonged to the Nakatsu domain from the Edo period until Meiji 4. Yoshitomi Station on the JR Nippō Main Line opened in April of Heisei 7.

People living here: 6,536people
Area: 5.72km²
Households: 2,667households
Rent (average for rentals): —
Healthcare: 1 hospital ／ 10 clinics

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

Children waiting for childcare: —3 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

Surrounded by 3 municipalities, and almost entirely flat.

Yoshitomi Town in Japan33.603°N 131.176°E

Territory of Yoshitomi Town

Boundaries: National Land Numerical Information (N03)

North to south

3.9km

Fukuoka Prefecture: 豊前市, 上毛町
Oita Prefecture: 中津市

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

Yoshitomi Town isthis kind of town.

01Yamakuni Bridge links Yoshitomi with Nakatsu in Ōita and was completed in Shōwa 9 (1934). According to the town's website, the middle of its 12 piers is the prefectural border. In 2022 the Japan Society of Civil Engineers named it a Selected Civil Engineering Heritage, citing its two-hole brick piers and Gerber girders.
02Yoshitomi is the easternmost town in Fukuoka Prefecture, which the prefecture's tourism site calls the "smallest town in Kyushu." Its area is 5.73 square kilometers in the town's statistics (end of December 2025). It has many auspicious place names (幸子, 小祝, 喜連島, 皇后石, 延命, 今吉), and the town calls itself the "Town of Good Fortune."
03Saigawa Bridge is a reinforced-concrete bridge of Taishō 9 (1920) and a Selected Civil Engineering Heritage of fiscal 2016. The Empress Stone (皇后石) is a large rock drawn on an Edo-period map kept at Hachiman Kohyō Shrine; for the belief that water collected in a hole on top removes warts, it was also called the "Demon's Mortar."

See the town as it is now.

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

If something caught your eye, ask the town itself.

Yoshitomi Town official site ↗Wikipedia ↗