Otoyo Town

The hall's record lay inside a statue.

Burakuji Yakushi Hall

Photo by Reggaeman (CC BY-SA 3.0)

01 ／ Otoyo Goishi-cha Tea Production Technique

Tea spread to dry on straw matslooks like stones laid on a Go board.

Steamed leaves are inoculated with mold in a chamber, packed into cedar tubs to ferment, cut into pieces about 3cm on a side and sun-dried on straw mats. The sight is thought to have given goishi-cha its name (goishi are Go stones). In March 2026 the technique was designated a national Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property.

Designated an Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property, March 2026
Cut into pieces about 3cm on a side
Once traded for salt

02 ／ Former Tachikawa Bansho (Checkpoint) Shoin

It became the lord's last lodgingon the Tosa road during sankin-kotai.

Tachikawa was opened in the early Heian period as the official road linking the capital and the provincial seat. Its checkpoint was one of Tosa's three great checkpoints, alongside Iwasa-guchi and Ikegawa-guchi. The shoin dates from the Kansei era (1789–1800) and was designated an Important Cultural Property in 1974.

Designated an Important Cultural Property in 1974
One of Tosa's three great checkpoints
Interior open on Sundays and holidays

03 ／ Former Yoshinogawa Bridge

The iron bridge's completion celebrationwas held on the day of the Yakushi festival.

In the middle of the Meiji era, the south and north banks of the Yoshino River were linked by boat. The bridge built in March 1911 (Meiji 44) is a Pratt-type structure about 105m long, the newest type in Shikoku. Its completion celebration fell on the 8th of the fourth lunar month, the day of the Daidasan (大田山) Yakushi festival, and some people are said to have come just to see the iron bridge.

Built March 1911 (Meiji 44)
About 58 ken (105m) long
Modern civil engineering heritage (JSCE)

Living here

A mountain town where the Ishizuchi and Tsurugi ranges meet.

about 3,000 people
Rural district town

Otoyo covers 315.06 square kilometers and has Osugi Station on the JR Dosan Line. At Kajigamori Prefectural Natural Park, 1,399m up, a sea of clouds can be seen when the weather is good. The town tree is the cedar, the flower the Amur adonis (fukujuso), the bird the varied tit and the fish the amago.

People living here: 3,252people
Area: 315.06km²
Households: 1,788households
Rent (average for rentals): —
Healthcare: 1 hospital ／ 7 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

Borders 4 municipalities across 2 prefectures.

Otoyo Town in Japan33.769°N 133.643°E

Territory of Otoyo Town

Boundaries: National Land Numerical Information (N03)

North to south

22.1km

Kochi Prefecture: 香美市, 本山町
Tokushima Prefecture: 三好市
Ehime Prefecture: 四国中央市

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

Otoyo Town isthis kind of town.

01Burakuji Yakushi Hall stands in Terauchi, Otoyo, and is a National Treasure. According to the town board of education, the temple's Yakushi Nyorai statue bears, on the back of its interior, a record dated Ninpei 1 (1151) and a note on the building of the hall and the statue.
02The Sugi no Osugi, a national Special Natural Monument, is two cedars joined at the base, also called the "married cedars." The mountain-village production tools of the Tosa Toyonaga region and surrounding areas are a national Important Tangible Folk Cultural Property.
03The main hall and priests' quarters of Jofukuji are nationally registered Tangible Cultural Properties. In one hamlet (南大王), Amur adonis flowers form a colony along the edges of the fields.

See the town as it is now.

Facebookotoyo.town ↗

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

If something caught your eye, ask the town itself.

Otoyo Town official site ↗Wikipedia ↗