So City

Groundwater carved a cave in shirasu.

Mizonokuchi Cave, venting pipes

Photo by Naokijp (CC BY-SA 4.0)

01 ／ Iwagawa Yagoro Doll Festival

A drum at 1 a.m. wakesa giant made of bamboo.

Yagoro-don, the figure at Iwagawa Hachiman Shrine's autumn festival, is a bamboo-basket doll 1 jo 6 shaku (4.85 m) tall. At 1 a.m. a warning drum wakes him with the cry "Yagoro-don ga okiddo," and in the afternoon he parades through the town for about three hours in the Hamaori procession. In 2025 it was designated a national Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property.

1 jo 6 shaku (4.85 m) tall
Every year on 3 November
2025: national Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property

02 ／ Steam Engine Made at Iso Shuseikan

A steam engine built at the Iso Shuseikanwas sold off to an Iwagawa brewer in 1917.

This horizontal single-cylinder steam engine carries the words "Kagoshima Iso Shuseikan-sei" (made at Iso Shuseikan) on its cylinder head. The year of the main body is unknown, and experts estimate the late Meiji era. The Iwagawa Brewery used it during power cuts until around 1960. It was designated a city cultural property in 2025.

Horizontal single-cylinder steam engine
Sold off in 1917 (Taisho 6)
2025: city-designated cultural property

03 ／ Kumano Shrine Oni-oi

The demon who should be chased outis welcomed and rampages in Fukagawa.

At Kumano Shrine in Fukagawa, Sueyoshi, a demon-chasing rite has been held on the night of 7 January. A 25-year-old man in his unlucky year becomes the demon, wrapped in countless paper offerings, and rampages down the approach. The city describes this demon as a good one that brings fortune and wards off disaster, with no image of an evil demon. It is a prefectural Intangible Folk Cultural Property.

Night of 7 January every year
A 25-year-old man becomes the demon
Kagoshima Prefecture designated

Living here

A city bordering Miyazaki's Miyakonojo, north of the Nippo Line.

about 30,000 people

In the north of the Osumi Peninsula, the city borders Miyakonojo in Miyazaki, Shibushi, Kirishima, Kanoya and Osaki. It was formed on 1 July 2005 by the merger of Osumi, Takarabe and Sueyoshi towns. The gateway is Takarabe Station, and the city has three Nippo Line stations: Takarabe, Osumi-Okawara and Kitamata.

People living here: 33,310people
Area: 390.14km²
Households: 15,325households
Rent (average for rentals): 31,099yen
Healthcare: 5 hospitals ／ 23 clinics

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

Children waiting for childcare: —12 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 5 municipalities across 1 prefectures.

So City in Japan31.654°N 131.019°E

Territory of So City

Boundaries: National Land Numerical Information (N03)

North to south

30.8km

Kagoshima Prefecture: 志布志市, 霧島市, 鹿屋市, 大崎町
Miyazaki Prefecture: 都城市

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

So City isthis kind of town.

01Mizonokuchi Cave is a 209.5 m cave formed in the Ito pyroclastic flow deposit (shirasu), erupted from the Aira Caldera about 29,000 years ago; "blow-through pipes" where gas and steam escaped remain in its roof, and it is a national Natural Monument
02The Iwagawa Yagoro-don festival has counterparts in Miyakonojo's Yamanokuchi and Nichinan's Obi in Miyazaki, and in 2025 it was designated a national Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property as the Iwagawa Yagoro Doll Festival
03The Sumiyoshi Shrine yabusame is a prefecturally designated rite held on the approach; the Hanabusa ironworks site in Minaminogo, Sueyoshi, where iron was made until the early Meiji era with sand iron carried from the Shibushi shore, is a city historic site; the gate and storehouse of the Hirukawa residence in Tsuneyoshi are Registered Tangible Cultural Properties

If something caught your eye, ask the town itself.

So City official site ↗Wikipedia ↗