Koka City

Beyond the torii, Ise-bound Saio stayed.

Tarumi Saio Tongu site

Photo by Yanajin33 (CC BY-SA 3.0)

01 ／ Chuso forts

A valley run by councils of local lords,where square-walled forts stand in rows.

In the Sengoku period, local lords and landed warriors of Koka banded together in a self-governing league called the Gunchuso, deciding matters by council. In one district of the former town of Konan, five small fortified residences stand within about 1 km of each other, and they were designated national historic sites in 2008. The city newsletter describes the earthwork at Shingu Branch Castle as nearly 10 m high.

National historic site, 2008
Five forts in one district
Shingu earthwork: nearly 10 m

02 ／ Shigaraki Palace site

The West Hall, estimated at about 100 m,has its pillars marked out over 78 m.

Shigaraki Palace was a capital built by Emperor Shomu, and the place where the building of a great Buddha was vowed. Excavations showed that the main hall and two side halls stood in a U-shape opening south. At the site park in Miyamachi, concrete columns 30 cm across mark the pillar positions along about 78 m of the West Hall, which is estimated to have been about 100 m long.

About 100 m (estimated)
About 78 m laid out
Columns 30 cm across

03 ／ Maebiki saws

Maebiki saws made in Kokawere sold from Hokkaido to Kyushu.

The maebiki is a large saw for cutting timber lengthwise into posts and boards. A document in Koka records that production began in 1750, with permission from Kyoto. Each saw was made in three stages, and at the peak, in the early 1900s, nearly 30,000 a year were produced and sold from Hokkaido to Kyushu.

A 1750 document on starting production
Three stages
Peak: nearly 30,000 a year

Living here

Five former towns combined, about 12% of the prefecture.

about 90,000 people

The city was formed in October 2004 by the merger of five towns: Minakuchi, Tsuchiyama, Koka, Konan and Shigaraki. It spans about 43.8 km east to west and 26.8 km north to south, from the Suzuka Mountains in the southeast to the Shigaraki Basin in the southwest, with flatland along the Yasu, Soma and Daido rivers. The gateway is Kibukawa Station on the JR Kusatsu Line, where the Ohmi Railway and the Shigaraki Kogen Railway also begin.

People living here: 88,358people
Area: 481.62km²
Households: 33,641households
Rent (average for rentals): 45,325yen
Healthcare: 5 hospitals ／ 53 clinics

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

Children waiting for childcare: —23 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 14 municipalities across 2 prefectures.

Koka City in Japan34.966°N 136.166°E

Territory of Koka 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

26.6km

Shiga Prefecture: 日野町, 湖南市, 大津市, 東近江市, 栗東市, 竜王町
Mie Prefecture: 伊賀市, 亀山市, 鈴鹿市, 四日市市, 菰野町
Kyoto Prefecture: 和束町, 南山城村, 宇治田原町

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

Koka City isthis kind of town.

01A Saio was an unmarried imperial princess or woman of the imperial family who served Ise Shrine, and the Tarumi Saio Tongu site marks one of her lodgings on the journey; the city says 31 Saio stayed there over 378 years
02The five fortified residences of the Koka Gunchuso, a self-governing league of Sengoku-period local warriors, and the site of Emperor Shomu's Shigaraki Palace are national historic sites
03The tools for making maebiki saws, large saws for cutting timber, are an Important Tangible Folk Cultural Property; Shigaraki ware, the Tokaido post towns of Minakuchi and Tsuchiyama, and the Minakuchi Okayama Castle site are also in the city

See the town as it is now.

Facebookcity.koka ↗

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

If something caught your eye, ask the town itself.

Koka City official site ↗Wikipedia ↗