Konan City

Pines forked near the base crowd a hill.

Hiramatsu Utsukushimatsu Habitat

Photo by さかおり (CC BY-SA 4.0)

01 ／ Raised-river tunnels

The old Tōkaidō passes undera raised river, through stone.

The Ōsuna and Yuratani rivers are tenjōgawa, rivers whose beds lie higher than the land around them, and the old Tōkaidō road passes under them through stone tunnels. The Ōsuna tunnel dates from Meiji 17 (1884) and the Yuratani tunnel from Meiji 19 (1886); both are still used as local roads. The city's list of undesignated properties calls the Ōsuna tunnel the first modern tunnel in the prefecture, and a city-designated Kōbō cedar stands on the embankment.

Meiji 17 (1884)
Meiji 19 (1886)
City-designated Kōbō cedar

02 ／ Onibashiri

The demons are played byboys of about sixth grade.

At Chōju-ji in Higashidera, a repentance rite is held every January at the start of the year, and locally it is also called Okonai. Boys of about sixth-grade age, called oniko, dress as red, blue and brown demons and, holding weapons and torches, act out driving away plague spirits. The rite doubles as the village's coming-of-age ceremony; it was once the duty of eldest sons at 15. In March 2026 it was designated a city intangible folk cultural property.

Every January
Oniko of about sixth grade
City-designated in 2026

03 ／ Kojima Honjin

A shogun's name and Kondō Isami'sare recorded in the Ishibe guest register.

At Kojima Honjin, an official inn of the Ishibe post town, a register of the names of its lodgers survives. According to city materials, it records that the 14th shogun Iemochi, the 15th shogun Yoshinobu and Kondō Isami of the Shinsengumi used the inn. The other honjin, Sandaiji Honjin, left few records. The Kojima Honjin documents were designated by the city in 1985.

Guest register survives
Iemochi, Yoshinobu, Kondō
Documents city-designated, 1985

Living here

Two towns, Ishibe and Kōsei, became one city.

about 50,000 people

The city was formed in October 2004 by the merger of the towns of Ishibe and Kōsei. The Yasu River runs through its center, and the JR Kusatsu Line has three stations in the city: Ishibe, Kōsei and Mikumo. The gateway is Kōsei Station, near the city's east office, about a 7-minute walk from the north exit.

People living here: 54,460people
Area: 70.4km²
Households: 22,498households
Rent (average for rentals): 47,425yen
Healthcare: 2 hospitals ／ 33 clinics

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

Children waiting for childcare: —13 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.

Konan City in Japan35.004°N 136.085°E

Territory of Konan 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

12.2km

甲賀市, 竜王町, 栗東市, 野洲市

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

Konan City isthis kind of town.

01Utsukushimatsu is a form of Japanese red pine whose trunk divides near the base; it grows in a cluster on a hillside in Hiramatsu, designated a national natural monument in 1921, and the city's conservation plan states that it grows naturally nowhere else in the country
02Under the old Tōkaidō, stone tunnels were built beneath raised rivers, in Meiji 17 (1884) for the Ōsuna and Meiji 19 (1886) for the Yuratani, and both still serve as local roads
03At Chōju-ji in Higashidera, boys called oniko play demons in the Onibashiri at the start of the year, and the Kojima Honjin in Ishibe keeps its guest register; the three temples with national-treasure buildings are called the Konan Sanzan

See the town as it is now.

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

If something caught your eye, ask the town itself.

Konan City official site ↗Wikipedia ↗