Shintomi Town

One plum, said to have become 60+ trees.

Yunomiya Zaronbai Plum Garden

Photo by あおのひーたん (CC BY-SA 4.0)

01 ／ Mukadezuka Kofun

Curved incisions, red coloring, and studsfixing the hide: a drum-shaped haniwa.

One of the figurative haniwa from Mukadezuka Kofun (百足塚古墳), a keyhole-shaped tomb about 82m long in the Gionbaru Kofun Group (祇園原古墳群). Its sides and underside bear patterns, and the side shows a hide fastened with studs. The Agency for Cultural Affairs records only four confirmed in Japan. The same tomb also yielded a female haniwa thought to show dancing.

Important Cultural Property (designated Sept. 2025)
Only four confirmed in Japan (Agency for Cultural Affairs)
Mound about 82m long

02 ／ Nyuta Kagura

A straw rope standing for a great serpent,cut in one stroke with a real sword.

A prefecturally designated Intangible Folk Cultural Property. 33 pieces are offered at the spring festival held every February 17. In the piece 'Kagura (Tsunakiri, 綱切)', a straw rope about 7m long and 20cm thick stands for a great serpent and is cut in one stroke with a real sword. It is said to depict Susanoo slaying the eight-forked serpent (Yamata no Orochi).

Prefectural Intangible Folk Cultural Property (2020)
Every Feb. 17, 33 pieces
Rope about 7m long, 20cm thick

03 ／ Kanamaru Weir

The weir once called Kurakarase Weircame to bear its founder's name, Kanamaru.

Kanamaru Sohachi, from Yanase (柳瀬) in Nyuta Village (新田村), dammed the Hitotsuse River (一ツ瀬川) in 1871 (Meiji 4) and dug a waterway about 4km long to Yanase. The weir was modified repeatedly and became a concrete fixed weir in 1948; a prefectural document says its irrigated area reached about 1,000 ha.

Completed 1871 (Meiji 4)
Waterway about 4km
Irrigated area about 1,000 ha (prefectural document, 2005)

Living here

The town tree is the plum. The town office is about 10 minutes by car from Saito Interchange.

about 20,000 people
Rural district town

The town was formed in 1959 (Showa 34) by the merger of the former Nyuta Village and the former Tonda Village, and has not merged in the Heisei era. The northwest is a plateau of upland fields, and the southeast is a flat paddy area along the Hitotsuse River. The town's only station is JR Nippo Main Line's Hyuga-Shintomi Station; the town says the office is about 10 minutes by car from Saito Interchange.

People living here: 16,564people
Area: 61.48km²
Households: 6,430households
Rent (average for rentals): 34,641yen
Healthcare: 0 hospitals ／ 13 clinics

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

Children waiting for childcare: —9 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.

Shintomi Town in Japan32.069°N 131.488°E

Territory of Shintomi Town

Boundaries: National Land Numerical Information (N03)

North to south

9.6km

西都市, 高鍋町, 宮崎市

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

Shintomi Town isthis kind of town.

01Yunomiya no Zaronbai (湯ノ宮の座論梅) is an old garden of wild-type plums in the Yunomiya district and a National Natural Monument. It is said to have spread from a single tree, and has 60 or more plants. Explanations of the name include one tracing it to a plum variety called Zaromi and another to people gathering to talk things over.
02The haniwa excavated from Mukadezuka Kofun were designated an Important Cultural Property in 2025. The Nyutabaru Kofun Group (新田原古墳群, a National Historic Site) is listed among the components of the Japan Heritage story 'Monuments of the Ancients: the Kofun Landscape of Southern Miyazaki, Where Pictures Are Drawn on the Tablelands'.
03Minashiro Kagura (三納代神楽) is one of the Takanabe Kagura (高鍋神楽), designated a national Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property; its Tsunakiri dance cuts a rope standing for a great serpent with a real sword. Around 200 loggerhead turtles come ashore each year at Tonda Beach (富田浜海岸), a prefecturally designated nesting site.

If something caught your eye, ask the town itself.

Shintomi Town official site ↗Wikipedia ↗