Miyakonojo City

Its prefecture lasted just over a year.

Miyakonojo Pref. Office stele

01 ／ Yamanokuchi's Bunya Puppets

The "gaku-gaku" rod that nods the headis a refinement other old-joruri puppets lack.

A puppet play with one puppeteer per puppet and bunya-bushi (文弥節) joruri chanting as its base, it is a nationally designated Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property. Tradition holds that goshi (郷士) samurai guarding the border at the northern tip of the Satsuma domain learned it in Kyoto and Osaka on their alternate-attendance trips and passed it on. 27 puppets from the Edo to early Meiji periods survive.

Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property
Designated 1995-12-26
27 puppets, Edo to early Meiji

02 ／ Miyakonojo's Rice-Field Gods (Tanokansaa)

Takasaki has figures of gods and priests;near the prefectural border, mostly farmers.

森田の田の神さぁ.jpg — Photo by あじさか (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Stone statues of the rice-field deity, "Tanokansaa" (タノカンサア, also called 田の神様), stand on rises overlooking paddies and beside the fields. The city's site calls it a distinctive culture found concentrated within the former Satsuma domain. Old statues in the form of gods and Shinto priests remain in large numbers in Takasaki (高崎町), while in areas bordering Kagoshima Prefecture many show farmers.

Made to pray for good harvests
Takasaki: many god and priest forms
Border areas: many farmer forms

03 ／ Sekinoo's Man-Made Falls

Two man-made falls were carvedout of rock in the Meiji era.

The three irrigation canals that draw water from upstream of Sekinoo Falls (関之尾滝) were all built by hand, in an age without heavy machinery. The man-made falls cut out of rock in the Meiji era are Odaki (男滝) and Medaki (女滝). The city's historical tour map also guides visitors to a "tunnel dug with hand chisels by people of old" and to Kawakami Shrine (川上神社).

3 irrigation canals
Kitamae Canal, 1894 (Meiji 27)
Waters over 400 ha of paddies

Living here

Miyakonojo Station is on the Nippo Main Line and Kitto Line.

about 160,000 people

The city's site says JR Kyushu's Nippo Main Line and Kitto Line run through the city, and the JR station its access page names is Miyakonojo Station. Nishi-Miyakonojo Station is also in the city.

People living here: 160,640people
Area: 653.36km²
Households: 71,092households
Rent (average for rentals): 40,827yen
Healthcare: 26 hospitals ／ 124 clinics

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

Population from 2010 onward (municipal boundary changed).2006-01-01 に新設合併（山之口町・高城町・山田町・高崎町）。2010年調査から市域が変わっている。

Children waiting for childcare: —62 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 9 municipalities across 1 prefectures.

Miyakonojo City in Japan31.720°N 131.062°E

Territory of Miyakonojo City

Boundaries: National Land Numerical Information (N03)

North to south

36.0km

Miyazaki Prefecture: 三股町, 宮崎市, 高原町, 小林市, 日南市, 串間市
Kagoshima Prefecture: 曽於市, 霧島市, 志布志市

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

Miyakonojo City isthis kind of town.

01The Miyakonojo Prefecture Office site stele stands in the southwest corner of Miyakonojo City Hall. Miyakonojo Prefecture was born in the prefectural reorganization of November 1871 (Meiji 4) and abolished in January 1873 (Meiji 6).
02The Bunya puppets of Yamanokuchi are a nationally designated Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property, and the stone rice-field deity statues, Tanokansaa, are a culture found concentrated within the former Satsuma domain. The city's site says the Ageuma (あげ馬) ritual survives nowhere else in the prefecture but Miyakonojo, as an intangible folk cultural property.
03Upstream of Sekinoo Falls spreads a pothole group designated a national natural monument. Kannonze Waterway (観音瀬水路) is a prefecturally designated historic site where two channels survive: a boat route whose digging began in Kansei 3 (1791) and a second one dug in a Meiji-era prefectural project.

If something caught your eye, ask the town itself.

Miyakonojo City official site ↗Wikipedia ↗