Matsuura City

Yuan officer's seal, found on the coast.

Phags-pa seal (管軍総把印)

Photo by 震天動地 (CC BY-SA 3.0)

01 ／ Doya Terraces

Rice planting here comes about two monthsearlier than in the paddies around Fukushima.

Warm sea breezes make the Doya Terraces (土谷棚田) a field of early-season rice. Planting comes about two months earlier than in the paddies around Fukushima, and the harvest is before Obon. The roughly 400 paddies were chosen among Japan's 100 Best Terraced Rice Fields in July 1999, and in autumn a fire festival lights up the terraces.

About 400 paddies
July 1999: Japan's 100 Best Terraced Rice Fields
Planting about two months earlier

02 ／ Former Nagai Residence

A Taisho-era wooden bungalow with a basementstands on the hill north of Mikuriya Port.

Its irimoya roof with a chidori gable gives a richly varied exterior. From the entrance, living rooms lie to the west and a guest wing to the southeast, set at a right angle, with servants' rooms and the kitchen to the north. Fine timber and sukiya-style design show inventiveness in the glazed windows and geometric patterns.

Taisho 10 (1921)
Wooden single-storey, with basement
2017: Registered Tangible Cultural Property

03 ／ Bronze Seated Buddha

A Buddha said to have sat on a Yuan ship;tradition says a fisherman's net caught it.

A work of the early Goryeo period, 77 cm tall. It is said to have been enshrined on a Yuan ship, and to have been caught in a fisherman's net at the end of the Edo period. Another tale says it cried out "Hara's Buddha returns to Hara" (原の釈迦は原に帰る) to a thief who tried to steal it.

Early Goryeo period
77 cm tall
1974: Prefectural Tangible Cultural Property

Living here

Takashima can be reached from Saga by bridge.

about 20,000 people

The city's gateway is Matsuura Station on the Matsuura Railway Nishi-Kyushu Line. Takashima, once an island with no land link, was joined by road to Saga Prefecture when the Takashima Hizen Bridge opened on 18 April 2009. At the bridge's foot stands the roadside station that serves as Takashima's gateway.

People living here: 21,271people
Area: 130.55km²
Households: 8,789households
Rent (average for rentals): 30,015yen
Healthcare: 3 hospitals ／ 15 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（福島町・鷹島町）。2010年調査から市域が変わっている。

Children waiting for childcare: —15 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 across 1 prefectures.

Matsuura City in Japan33.341°N 129.709°E

Territory of Matsuura City

Boundaries: National Land Numerical Information (N03)

North to south

22.6km

Nagasaki Prefecture: 佐世保市, 平戸市
Saga Prefecture: 伊万里市

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

Matsuura City isthis kind of town.

01The Yuan officer's seal (管軍総把印), found on Takashima's Kozaki coast in 1974, is a bronze seal dated to 1277 in Kublai's reign, its face carved in Phags-pa script
02The sea off Kozaki on Takashima was designated a National Historic Site in 2012, the first underwater site in Japan so designated; finds include parts of a hull, ceramics and lacquerware
03Doya Terraces in Fukushima are among Japan's 100 Best Terraced Rice Fields, Yodohime Shrine in Shisa holds the only yabusame (流鏑馬) in the prefecture, and Hoshika has a registered 1921 residence

See the town as it is now.

Facebookcity.matsuura ↗

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

If something caught your eye, ask the town itself.

Matsuura City official site ↗Wikipedia ↗