Naka Town

A town museum of woodcarving and prints.

Aioi Shinrin Museum, wood art

Photo by Knuckle modoki (CC0)

01 ／ Tafu Cloth (阿波の太布製造技術)

Fibre from kozo bark is spun into thread,and the cloth woven on a jibata loom, in Kito.

A coarse, durable cloth made from the fibre of kozo (paper mulberry) bark. The steps include steaming, stripping the bark, boiling it in lye, beating it with a mallet and bleaching it in the river; spinning the thread takes great skill, and weaving is done on a ground loom (地機, jibata). At the Tafu-an (太布庵) hall, the town says it welcomes visitors to try the work or watch it every Tuesday.

Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property (designated March 3, 2017)
Preserved by the Awa Tafu Seizo Giho Hozon Denshokai
Made in the Iya area at the foot of Mt. Tsurugi and in the former Kito Village (Agency for Cultural Affairs)

02 ／ Sakashu Stage (坂州の舞台)

A chanter's seat (太夫座) sees stage and audience,and a pulley in the ceiling drives a mechanism.

A puppet stage standing in the grounds of the Hachiman Shrine, said to have been converted from a kitchen hall built in 1791 (Kansei 3). The way of working fusuma karakuri (襖カラクリ) that has been done here, swapping the backdrop in an instant by operating sliding screens, was selected in 1999 as an intangible folk cultural property for which records should be made.

Important Tangible Folk Cultural Property (designated December 16, 1998)
Located at Sakashu, Hirose 32, Naka
Awa no Fusuma Karakuri no Shūzoku selected on December 3, 1999

03 ／ Kōnose Gorge (高の瀬峡)

A deep V-shaped valley at the head of the Naka River.In autumn its limestone cliffs turn red and yellow.

高の瀬峡.jpg — Photo by r18 INO (PACHIMO) (CC BY 3.0)

At the uppermost reach of the Naka River, a deeply cut V-shaped gorge runs on and on. In autumn the limestone crags on both slopes are coloured red and yellow. A rock face across the town road is called 日照磯 by locals, and is said to turn black before rain and white during a run of fine days.

Ranked first in the prefecture's tourism top-100 popularity vote (Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism)
V-shaped gorge at the uppermost Naka River
Rock face called 日照磯 (local name)

Living here

More than 90% of the town's area is forest.

about 7,000 people
Rural district town

Formed on March 1, 2005 from the five towns and villages of Washiki, Aioi, Kaminaka, Kisawa and Kito. The Naka River and the Sakashu Kito River (坂州木頭川) meet inside the former Kaminaka Town and flow east through the middle of the town. Annual rainfall averaged 3,438 mm for 2013–2022 at the Kito station, and the town says this is the highest in the prefecture. Kito yuzu is a GI (geographical indication) product whose production area is Naka only; regular production began in 1960, when six volunteers in the Suke (助) district of former Kito Village shipped fruit to Osaka.

People living here: 7,367people
Area: 694.98km²
Households: 3,187households
Rent (average for rentals): —
Healthcare: 1 hospital ／ 11 clinics

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

Children waiting for childcare: —4 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 11 municipalities across 1 prefectures.

Naka Town in Japan33.857°N 134.497°E

Territory of Naka Town

Boundaries: National Land Numerical Information (N03)

North to south

25.8km

Tokushima Prefecture: 海陽町, 阿南市, 上勝町, 美馬市, 美波町, 神山町, 三好市, 勝浦町
Kochi Prefecture: 香美市, 馬路村, 安芸市

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

Naka Town isthis kind of town.

01The Aioi Shinrin Museum of Art, a town museum on the shore of Kawaguchi Dam lake in Naka, collects woodcarvings, woodblock prints and other works made of wood, and opened in November 1993 (Heisei 5), the town says.
02Awa no Tafu Seizo Gijutsu is a nationally designated Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property and the Sakashu Stage an Important Tangible Folk Cultural Property; the town says over 40 farm-village stages survive in Naka, a number said to be the highest in Japan.
03Kito yuzu is a GI product grown only in Naka, and Kōnose Gorge is an autumn-colour spot at the head of the Naka River. Sakashu has the Sakashu Unconformity, a national natural monument, and the Kito cedar single-log riding contest is kept up by a preservation society.

If something caught your eye, ask the town itself.

Naka Town official site ↗Wikipedia ↗