Shibata City

A Sumida River guest house, moved home.

Zoshunkaku, Okura's villa

Photo by 芝嶋田令 (CC0)

01 ／ Ochibori River

The Takemae brothers put in all they hadand re-dug the Ochibori River, about 2.6 km, in a month.

In the 17th century a marsh of about 2,000 hectares, Shiunjigata (also called Shiozugata), lay across what is now the Shiunji area and beyond. In 1728 (Kyoho 13), the brothers Takemae Kohachiro and Gonbei re-dug the canal now called the Ochibori River, mobilizing a total of 30,000 workers. Through the works and floods, 1,900 hectares of the lagoon dried up and 42 villages arose around it, the prefecture records.

Kyoho 13 (1728)
30,000 workers, about 2.6 km
1,900 ha of lagoon dried up

02 ／ Shibata Castle walls

Walls of coarse-grained basalt from within the city:about 350 m and 11,000 stones survive.

Shibata Castle's stone walls are about 350 m long in total, and about 11,000 of their stones survive. The stone is coarse-grained basalt from within the city, and most of the walls use advanced techniques called kirikomi-hagi and nunozumi, cut stones fitted together and laid in horizontal courses. The city explains that only this part of the castle had stone walls; the rest was enclosed by earthen ramparts.

About 350 m in total length
About 11,000 stones
Coarse-grained basalt

03 ／ Dogu-shaped vessel

A Yayoi vessel shaped like a human upper body,with no head or face, stands 45.3 cm tall.

The city calls the Murajiri site one of its representative sites. Excavations in 1980 and 1981 found a group of Yayoi-period burial pits. A dogu-shaped vessel from them imitates the upper body of a person but has no head or face, and at 45.3 cm tall it is far larger than examples from other sites, the city says. It shows secondary burials in which pots served as ossuaries, and it is a national Important Cultural Property.

Height 45.3 cm
Yayoi secondary burials
Important Cultural Property, 2013

Living here

From Tokyo, change at Niigata Station to the Hakushin Line.

about 90,000 people

For visitors from the Tokyo side, the city says to take the Joetsu Shinkansen to Niigata Station, change to the Hakushin Line, and get off at Shibata Station; from the Akita side it is Shibata Station on the Uetsu Main Line. The city hall, Yorines Shibata, is a 10-minute walk from Shibata Station. The city says it prospered in the Edo period as a castle town of 100,000 koku, and it adjoins Niigata, the prefectural capital.

People living here: 94,927people
Area: 533.11km²
Households: 35,191households
Rent (average for rentals): 46,996yen
Healthcare: 6 hospitals ／ 77 clinics

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

Population from 2005 onward (municipal boundary changed).2003-07-07 に合併。2005年調査から市域が変わっている。2005-05-01 に編入合併（紫雲寺町・加治川村）。2005年調査から市域が変わっている。

Children waiting for childcare: —28 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 7 municipalities across 2 prefectures.

Shibata City in Japan37.948°N 139.327°E

Territory of Shibata 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

29.0km

Niigata Prefecture: 胎内市, 阿賀町, 聖籠町, 阿賀野市, 新潟市
Yamagata Prefecture: 小国町
Fukushima Prefecture: 喜多方市

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

Shibata City isthis kind of town.

01Zoshunkaku is the guest house of the villa that Okura Kihachiro built in 1912 on the Sumida River at Mukojima in Tokyo; it was moved to his hometown of Shibata in 2023 (Reiwa 5) and became a nationally registered tangible cultural property in 2024
02Of the Shiunjigata marsh, about 2,000 hectares in the Edo period, 1,900 hectares dried up after the Takemae brothers re-dug a canal in 1728, and 42 villages arose around it
03Shibata Castle keeps about 350 m of stone walls of coarse-grained basalt from within the city, and from the Yayoi reburial site at Murajiri, 18 items including a faceless dogu-shaped vessel are Important Cultural Properties

If something caught your eye, ask the town itself.

Shibata City official site ↗Wikipedia ↗