Uozu City

A 2,000-year-old forest below sea level.

Uozu Buried Forest

Photo by ナイトキャビン (CC BY 4.0)

01 ／ Mirage

A lord had it painted;a museum keeps counting it.

The Uozu mirage described in the Kanbun Tōkōki (寛文東行記) of 1669 is, according to the local museum, the oldest reliable record of a mirage in Japan. In 1797 Maeda Harunaga, lord of the Kaga domain, had the mirage he saw from his lodging, the Otaya (御旅屋), painted in six sheets. In 2020 the site became Japan's first registered monument for a weather phenomenon. The museum has recorded sightings since 1992.

Recorded in 1669
Registered monument, 2020
Observed since 1992

02 ／ Tatemon

On sleds without wheels,15-metre towers of light are hauled.

A tatemon (たてもん) is a pole about 15 m tall set on a wheelless, sled-like base and hung with 70 to 90 lanterns in a triangle. At the festival of Suwa Shrine (諏訪神社), held to pray for good catches and safe voyages, seven are hauled through the night on the first Friday and Saturday of August. It is an Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property, and joined UNESCO's Intangible Cultural Heritage list in 2016.

About 15 m tall
Seven tatemon
UNESCO, 2016

03 ／ Cylindrical water divider

The water of a river once fought overis shared out by the length of an arc.

The swift Katakai River (片貝川) brought floods in heavy rain and shortages in summer, and quarrels over water never ceased. The Higashiyama Cylindrical Water Divider (東山円筒分水槽), built in 1954, lets water that has passed under the river spill over a round rim and divides it fairly among three canals, Tenjinno, Aoyagi and Higashiyama, by the length of the circumference each receives. It is 9.1 m across and became a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2020.

Built in 1954
9.1 m across
Feeds three canals

Living here

From the sea to 2,400 m peaks in 25 km.

about 40,000 people

The city's highest point is Mount Kamatani (釜谷山, 2,415 m) in the Kekachi Mountains (毛勝三山), and about 70% of its area is mountain land more than 200 m above sea level. The coastline is about 8 km long. The city's gateway is Uozu Station on the Ainokaze Toyama Railway, with a tourist information centre inside the station building. From Kurobe-Unazukionsen Station on the Hokuriku Shinkansen, in neighbouring Kurobe, a shared taxi takes about 15 to 30 minutes.

People living here: 40,535people
Area: 200.61km²
Households: 15,800households
Rent (average for rentals): 46,120yen
Healthcare: 6 hospitals ／ 28 clinics

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

Children waiting for childcare: —15 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 3 municipalities.

Uozu City in Japan36.827°N 137.409°E

Territory of Uozu City

Boundaries: National Land Numerical Information (N03)

North to south

20.9km

黒部市, 上市町, 滑川市

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

Uozu City isthis kind of town.

01A museum shows the Uozu Buried Forest, a primeval cedar forest buried about 2,000 years ago, in the very place it was dug up
02Its shore has kept records of mirages: a written account from 1669, a lord's painting from 1797 and a registered monument from 2020
03It has a festival that hauls 15-metre tatemon on wheelless sleds, and a round water divider that shares the Katakai River fairly

See the town as it is now.

Facebookuozushi ↗

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

If something caught your eye, ask the town itself.

Uozu City official site ↗Wikipedia ↗