Article

20583 ／しなのまち

Nagano Prefecture 上水内郡

Shinano Town

His final home: a storehouse 6.2 m wide.

Kobayashi Issa's storehouse

Photo by のりまき (CC BY 3.0)

01 ／ Tategahana Site

From the bed of Lake Nojiricame tools made of elephant bone.

At the Tategahana Site on the bed of Lake Nojiri, tools made from Naumann elephant bone came out of a layer about 40,000 years old. Six of them, including a cleaver and a knife, are designated by the town, which notes that very few bone tools have been excavated in Japan. The lake-bed digs were held 22 times between 1962 and 2018.

From a layer about 40,000 years old
Six pieces designated by the town, 1994
22 lake-bed digs, 1962 to 2018

02 ／ Lake Nojiri and Biwa Island

A rock avalanche from the Kurohime volcano dammed a valley.Lake Nojiri formed there.

About 70,000 years ago the flank of the Kurohime volcano collapsed in a rock avalanche that dammed a valley flowing from Mount Madarao, and Lake Nojiri formed, writes the Nojiriko Naumann Elephant Museum. On Biwa Island, in the lake's northwest, stands Uga Shrine, said to have been founded in 730.

Rock avalanche about 70,000 years ago
Lake area about 4.45 km²
Biwa Island, about 660 m around

03 ／ Nokaji House

No power hammer was brought in;until 1992 every step was done by hand.

Shinano's Nokaji House, the former Nakamura home, keeps a smithy of the kind used before the Meiji era, worked with bellows and pine charcoal, and is a Tangible Folk Cultural Property of Nagano Prefecture. Its 733 smithing tools are designated too. The technique of Shinshu sickles is a Nagano Prefecture selected Intangible Folk Cultural Property.

Worked by hand until 1992
733 smithing tools
Prefectural designation, 2016

Shinano Town from the sky

Now and 1974–78. Tap a photo to zoom in.

Now1974–78

Wide (about 6 km across)

Close (about 1.5 km across)

Now (shot July–October 2022)Shot 1974–78

Source: Geospatial Information Authority of Japan (GSI) GSI Tiles（全国最新写真（シームレス）／国土画像情報（第一期：1974〜1978年撮影））

Open in GSI Maps (now)Open in GSI Maps (1974–78)

Living here

Two stations sit at the prefecture's northern edge.

about 8,000 people
Rural district town

The town lies at the northern edge of Nagano Prefecture and borders Myoko City in Niigata Prefecture to the north. Its own site describes a highland basin ringed by the five mountains of Hokushin: Mount Myoko to the north, Mount Kurohime to the west, Mounts Iizuna and Togakushi to the south, and Mount Madarao to the east. Two stations of the Shinano Railway Kita-Shinano Line, Kurohime and Furuma, are in the town, and its gateway is Kurohime Station.

People living here: 7,739people
Area: 149.3km²
Households: 3,062households
Rent (average for rentals): —
Healthcare: 1 hospital ／ 3 clinics

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

Children waiting for childcare: —4 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 1 prefectures.

Shinano Town in Japan36.806°N 138.207°E

Territory of Shinano Town

Boundaries: National Land Numerical Information (Administrative Area Data), MLIT. Processed by Machigatari.Lakes: National Land Numerical Information (Lake Data), MLIT. Processed by Machigatari. Prepared with the approval of the Director-General of the Geospatial Information Authority of Japan, using its Digital Map 25000 (Spatial Data Framework) and Digital Map 25000 (Place Names and Public Facilities). (承認番号平27情使、第585号)

North to south

13.8km

Nagano Prefecture: Iizuna Town, Nagano City, Iiyama City
Niigata Prefecture: Myoko City

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

Shinano Town isthis kind of town.

01The storehouse of the national historic site Kobayashi Issa Former Residence, about 6.2 m wide, is where the haiku poet Kobayashi Issa spent his final years; the site was designated in 1957
02Six tools of Naumann elephant bone, from a layer about 40,000 years old at the Tategahana Site, are designated by the town, and the lake-bed digs were held 22 times from 1962 to 2018
03The museum writes that Lake Nojiri formed when a rock avalanche dammed a valley about 70,000 years ago, and the town holds the Nokaji House (former Nakamura home), a Tangible Folk Cultural Property of the prefecture

See the town as it is now.

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

If something caught your eye, ask the town itself.

Shinano Town official site ↗Wikipedia ↗

From this town's themes