Hikari City

Gate stones with no door-pivot holes

Iwakisan Kōgoishi

01 ／ Hayaosa Hachimangu Autumn Festival

Floats shaped like a torii and guardian dogsrecreate a shrine on an empty lot.

At the autumn festival, floats pulled from Hayaosa Hachimangu (早長八幡宮) to the festival rest site arrive in order (torii, stone lanterns, komainu, zuijin) and line up in the form of a shrine. The portable shrine passes through the torii last. Ten floats and the Odoriyama were designated city Folk Cultural Properties in 1981.

10 floats and the Odoriyama
City-designated Folk Cultural Property (Dec. 1981)
2025 procession: October 12

02 ／ The Shimizu Family and Mukoyama Bunko

The son of the Bitchu-Takamatsu castle lordreceived land here and built his father's grave.

向山文庫.jpg — Photo by Chizuru1105 (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Seikyoji (清鏡寺) has eight memorial towers for Muneharu and his retainers. His son Kageharu, after Sekigahara, was received as a senior Mori vassal. The earthen storehouse of the Nanba, chief retainers of the Shimizu, is the site of Mukoyama Bunko; it opened to villagers in 1906. Across the river stands a monument to Nanba Tan'an.

8 memorial towers (city-designated, 1983)
Mukoyama Bunko: city Historic Site (1976)
Monument's title calligraphy by Ito Hirobumi

03 ／ Ushima

Around Tanabata, yellow mokugenji flowersbloom on the island's south slope.

On Ushima, 20 minutes by ferry from Murozumi Port, a grove of mokugenji (goldenrain trees) grows. First found in Japan in 1935, it flowers around July 7. The Fujita and Nishizaki breakwaters (藤田・西﨑の波止), stacked stone built at users' own expense from the Meiji era to the early Showa period, were chosen among the 100 Island Treasures.

About 3,500 trees on the island
Prefectural Natural Monument (1998)
100 Island Treasures (2009)

Living here

Kusafugu come to the shore, and puppet plays are staged in Shimata.

about 50,000 people

Hikari lies in southeastern Yamaguchi on Suo-nada Sea, where the Shimata River forms a delta. The kusafugu spawning ground is a prefectural Natural Monument; the season runs from mid-May to early July. Shimata Ningyo Joruri is said to have begun with cucumber puppets. Nijigahama-giku chrysanthemums bloom from late October.

People living here: 49,798people
Area: 92.13km²
Households: 21,439households
Rent (average for rentals): 41,401yen
Healthcare: 6 hospitals ／ 40 clinics

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

Population from 2005 onward (municipal boundary changed).2004-10-04 に合併。2005年調査から市域が変わっている。

Children waiting for childcare: —12 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 5 municipalities.

Hikari City in Japan33.962°N 131.942°E

Territory of Hikari City

Boundaries: National Land Numerical Information (N03)

North to south

20.2km

田布施町, 周南市, 岩国市, 下松市, 柳井市

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

Hikari City isthis kind of town.

01Mount Iwaki (石城山), 362 m, straddles Hikari and Tabuse; around its eighth station run earthworks, gates and water gates. This is the Kōgoishi (神籠石), a remnant of an ancient mountain fortress. Because the gate's foundation stones have no pivot holes, some argue the gate was never finished.
02At Hayaosa Hachimangu's autumn festival in Murozumi, floats of a torii and komainu line up at the rest site in the form of a shrine. In Asae, Seikyoji holds memorial towers for Shimizu Muneharu, lord of Bitchu-Takamatsu Castle; in Tatsuno, the site of a library of the Nanba, chief retainers of the Shimizu, remains.
03Ushima is an island about 8.4 km southeast of Murozumi Port, with a prefectural Natural Monument grove of mokugenji. On the shore, kusafugu come to spawn from mid-May to early July, and in Shimata a puppet play is offered in July.

If something caught your eye, ask the town itself.

Hikari City official site ↗Wikipedia ↗