Gosen City

Beyond cedars, a temple with a corridor.

Jikoji cedar avenue

Photo by Tail furry (CC BY-SA 4.0)

01 ／ Castle town

Turn a corner, and Mt. Haku or another peakcomes into view: Muramatsu's yamaate.

The castle town of the 30,000-koku Muramatsu domain is known, the city says, for yamaate: at each turn, the road offers a view of the sacred Mt. Haku or other surrounding peaks. Long straight roads and crossroads were avoided in favor of T- and L-shaped junctions and offset intersections, and traces of the castle town remain today.

30,000-koku Muramatsu domain
T- and L-shaped roads
Muramatsu domain founded 1644

02 ／ Hakunobi

Said to be danced on a single sheet of paper,a dance unique to Gosen.

The dancers are men who line up in a row facing the audience and bow. They start dancing as the song begins and bow again as it ends. In crested kimono and hakama, with a white fan at the waist, they are said to dance on a single sheet of white paper. The city thinks today's form took shape between the late Edo and early Meiji periods.

City-designated, 1985
On one sheet of white paper
Crested kimono, hakama, white fan

03 ／ Mushiokuri

Carrying an insect-warding Jizo around the village,five-color flags float from a bridge.

This is a ritual of Zenga in Akomi. The city writes that, of the mushiokuri rituals once held along the Agano and Hayade rivers, it is the only one still performed. After prayers, people with five-color flags carry an insect-warding Jizo around the village, set the flags afloat from a bridge, and then walk across fire. It also draws on Shugendo.

City-designated, 2015
Five-color flags
Prayers, procession, fire-walking

Living here

Mountains ring the Agano and Hayade plain on three sides.

about 50,000 people

Gosen was formed in 2006 by the merger of the former Gosen City and the former town of Muramatsu, and lies southeast of Niigata City. Rice paddies spread across a fan-shaped plain shaped by the Agano and Hayade rivers, with mountains on the east, west and south. The former city covered 98.80 km² and the former town 253.07 km². The gateway is Gosen Station on the JR Banetsu West Line.

People living here: 47,625people
Area: 351.91km²
Households: 17,021households
Rent (average for rentals): 34,904yen
Healthcare: 2 hospitals ／ 37 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（村松町）。2010年調査から市域が変わっている。

Children waiting for childcare: —17 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 6 municipalities.

Gosen City in Japan37.744°N 139.183°E

Territory of Gosen City

Boundaries: National Land Numerical Information (N03)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

29.7km

阿賀町, 加茂市, 新潟市, 阿賀野市, 三条市, 田上町

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

Gosen City isthis kind of town.

01A cedar avenue, a prefectural natural monument, covers about 500 m of approach, and at its end Jikoji Temple has a main hall, gate and corridor among its nationally registered buildings; the city calls a Soto temple that keeps its corridor very rare in the prefecture
02The castle town of the 30,000-koku Muramatsu domain keeps yamaate streets that open onto mountain views at every turn, and Gosen has hakunobi, a dance said to be performed on a single sheet of white paper
03In Zenga, Akomi, a mushiokuri ritual sends five-color flags down the river and ends with fire-walking, and Gosen silk weaving, which began with hakama cloth called Gosen-hira in the Tenmei era, developed the nureyoko technique of wetting weft threads

If something caught your eye, ask the town itself.

Gosen City official site ↗Wikipedia ↗