Shoo Town

Red pointed roof, once a district office

Former Katsuta District Office

Photo by 世界の坂田銀時 (CC0)

01 ／ Uetsuki no Kaku-dohyo (Square Sumo Ring)

The square ring still in useis said to be the only one in Japan.

Because the ring is square, it is called the kaku-dohyo (square ring), and its sumo is written 角力. Every year Shoo Kita Elementary School in Uetsuki-naka holds a sumo tournament on it; in 2025 about 200 pupils took part. It is said to be the only such ring in Japan that survives and is still in use.

Pupils offer a sumo tournament every year
2025: about 200 pupils took part
Location: Uetsuki-naka, Shoo

02 ／ Former Kimura Family Storehouse

On the site of the former wakihonjin,a two-story storehouse with namako walls.

The only relic on the site of the former wakihonjin (secondary inn for daimyo) in Katsumada-juku, a post town on the Izumo road. It is a gabled, two-story earthen storehouse with one room per floor, plastered up to the eaves, and most of its walls are namako (sea-cucumber) walls. Built in the Edo period (1830–1868), it conveys the look of a post town that was key to the daimyo's alternate-attendance travel.

Registered Tangible Cultural Property (2016)
Two-story earthen storehouse, 34 sq m
Most walls are namako walls

03 ／ Yoshida no Abura-jizo

Its inscriptions date the jizo,once honored with oil on festival days, to 1380.

Enshrined in a jizo hall outside the temple gate of Tokoji, it is called Yoshida's Abura-jizo (oil jizo). The granite figure is 98 cm high. Inscriptions on both sides show it was made in 1380 (Koryaku 2) at the request of Enbutsu. In 1924 it was moved from the temple approach to its present place. It is a prefectural Important Cultural Property; only its exterior can be seen.

Height: 98 cm
Made in 1380 (Koryaku 2)
Prefectural Important Cultural Property (1959)
Exterior viewing only

Living here

On the plateau, fruit and black soybeans grow.

about 10,000 people
Rural district town

Shoo lies in northeastern Okayama, on the Mimasaka plateau. Farmland was completed on the hills in 1979, and farming shifted from rice and wheat to fruit, vegetables, tea and dairy. Local specialties include Nyu Pione grapes, white peaches and the black soybean Sakushu-kuro; the Okayama amaguri chestnut was bred at a forestry research institute in the town.

People living here: 10,888people
Area: 54.05km²
Households: 4,089households
Rent (average for rentals): —
Healthcare: 1 hospital ／ 6 clinics

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

Children waiting for childcare: —5 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.

Shoo Town in Japan35.042°N 134.116°E

Territory of Shoo Town

Boundaries: National Land Numerical Information (N03)

North to south

10.2km

美作市, 津山市, 奈義町, 美咲町

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

Shoo Town isthis kind of town.

01The former Katsuta District Office is a two-story wooden district office built in 1912 (Meiji 45). It also served as Shoo's town hall and a local museum, became a nationally registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2016, and has been open as the Shoo Furusato Museum since July 2025.
02Katsumada, the town center, was a post town on the Izumo road, and a storehouse stands on the site of its former wakihonjin. In Uetsuki, a square sumo ring said to be the only one in use in Japan hosts a pupils' tournament.
03Kurigara Shrine is said to mark where Sakata no Kintoki (Kintaro) was buried, and the Kintoki Festival has been held there. At Tokoji in Higashi-Yoshida stands Yoshida's Abura-jizo, a stone jizo from the Nanbokucho period.

If something caught your eye, ask the town itself.

Shoo Town official site ↗Wikipedia ↗