Kawai Town

East restored; west as it looks today.

Nagareyama Kofun

Photo by 8-hachiro (CC BY-SA 4.0)

01 ／ Kofun

Local volunteers pooled money to buy the landand excavated Samita Takarazuka Kofun.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs records that local volunteers pooled money, bought the land of the kofun and excavated it. The finds, including mirrors and beads, are a national Important Cultural Property held by the Tokyo National Museum. The Kaokumon mirror shows four buildings on its back (photo: a replica) and is kept by the Imperial Household Agency.

National Historic Site (designated 1987)
Finds are a national Important Cultural Property
Four buildings on the mirror's back

02 ／ Garden

A garden laid out at the end of the Taisho erais now the town hall's garden.

According to the town, Morimoto of the Yamato Railway built a residence and garden at the end of the Taisho era, using the natural scenery of the Umami Hills, and named it Mameyamaso. It was handed to Kawai Village in 1948, and a new town hall was built later. Most of the trees are natural growth native to the hills, and the town says visitors may stroll there even on town hall holidays.

Built at the end of the Taisho era
Handed to Kawai Village in 1948
Most trees are natural growth

03 ／ Festival

The festival of throwing sand like rainis formally called the Otaue Festival.

At Hirose Shrine's Sunakake Festival, held every 11 February, green bamboo is set up before the worship hall to stand for a rice field. After a rice-planting ritual, the field hands and the ox player throw sand at worshippers, who throw it back. The town designates it an Intangible Folk Cultural Property. The main hall, a one-bay Kasuga-zukuri built in 1711, is designated by Nara Prefecture.

Town-designated intangible folk cultural property
Sand thrown in 8 rounds of about 5 minutes
Main hall built in 1711 (Shotoku 1)

Living here

Three stations in town, all on the Kintetsu Tawaramoto Line.

about 20,000 people
Rural district town

The town's stations are Owada, Samitagawa and Ikebe on the Kintetsu Tawaramoto Line. In Kintetsu's timetable (as of 14 March 2026), on the weekend and holiday schedule every train from Ikebe toward Shin-Oji runs as a Shin-Oji local, from morning to night. The town describes its garden as "right by Kintetsu Ikebe Station, to the left of the town hall entrance."

People living here: 17,018people
Area: 8.23km²
Households: 6,792households
Rent (average for rentals): 45,104yen
Healthcare: 0 hospitals ／ 17 clinics

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

Children waiting for childcare: —2 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

Surrounded by 7 municipalities, and almost entirely flat.

Kawai Town in Japan34.578°N 135.737°E

Territory of Kawai Town

Boundaries: National Land Numerical Information (N03)

North to south

4.5km

広陵町, 上牧町, 斑鳩町, 王寺町, 川西町, 安堵町, 三宅町

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

Kawai Town isthis kind of town.

01Nagareyama Kofun is a National Historic Site, a keyhole-shaped kofun thought to date from the first half of the 5th century; its east side has restored stone cladding and haniwa rows, and its west side is landscaped as it looks today. It is one of the Umami Kofun Group
02Samita Takarazuka Kofun, a National Historic Site excavated by local volunteers who pooled money, yielded the house-patterned mirror. The town hall garden began as Mameyamaso, a residence of the end of the Taisho era. The town's stations are on the Kintetsu Tawaramoto Line
03Hirose Shrine's Sunakake Festival, in which sand stands for rain, is a town-designated festival. The town also has Chorin-ji, where tiles marked "Chokura-ji" were found, Kawaihama, a landing for Yamato River boat traffic, and a prefecture-designated fossil of an elephant found in the Umami Hills (Shigazo)

See the town as it is now.

Facebooksunamaru0211 ↗

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

If something caught your eye, ask the town itself.

Kawai Town official site ↗Wikipedia ↗