Tōhoku Region
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- This article is about a region of Japan. Tohoku is also a town in Aomori Prefecture.
Image:Japan Tohoku Region large.png
The Tōhoku region (東北地方; Tōhoku-chihō) is a geographical area of Japan. Tōhoku is Japanese for "northeast," and the Tōhoku region occupies the northeastern portion of Honshu, the largest island of Japan. The area is also known as Michinoku (みちのく).
The region consists of six prefectures: Akita, Aomori, Fukushima, Iwate, Miyagi and Yamagata Prefectures.
The last stronghold of the indigenous Ainu on Honshu and the site of many battles, Tōhoku retains a reputation as a remote and backward region, offering breathtaking scenery but a harsh climate. Tōhoku is immemorialized in haiku poet Matsuo Basho's work Oku no Hosomichi (The Narrow Road to the Deep North).
Tōhoku, like most of Japan, is hilly or mountainous, with the Ou Mountains forming running north-south. Its initial historical settlement occurred between the seventh and ninth centuries A.D., well after Japanese civilization and culture had become firmly established in central and southwestern Japan. Although iron, steel, cement, chemical, pulp, and petroleum-refining industries began developing in the 1960s, Tōhoku was traditionally considered the granary of Japan because it supplied Sendai and the Tokyo-Yokohama market with rice and other farm commodities. Tōhoku provided 20 percent of the nation's rice crop. The climate, however, is harsher than in other parts of Honshu and permits only one crop a year on paddy land. Image:Tetsubin1571.jpg The inland location of many of the region's lowlands has led to a concentration of much of the population there. Coupled with coastlines that do not favor port development, this settlement pattern resulted in a much greater than usual dependence on land and railroad transportation. Low points in the central mountain range fortunately make communications between lowlands on either side of the range moderately easy. Tourism became a major industry in the Tōhoku region, with points of interest including:
- Hirosaki
- the islands of Matsushima Bay
- Lake Towada
- Oirase River Valley
- Lake Tazawa
- Kakunodate
- the Rikuchu Coastline National Park
- the Bandai-Asahi National Park
- Sanriku Coastline
- Morioka
- Hiraizumi
- Aizu
- Mt. Bandai
- Three Mountains of Dewa
See also
External links
Travel guide to Tōhoku Region from Wikitravel
References
- This article incorporates public domain text from the Library of Congress Country Studies. - Japan
| edit | Prefectures of Japan | Image:Flag of Japan.svg |
|---|---|---|
| Aichi | Akita | Aomori | Chiba | Ehime | Fukui | Fukuoka | Fukushima | Gifu | Gunma | Hiroshima | Hokkaido | Hyogo | Ibaraki | Ishikawa | Iwate | Kagawa | Kagoshima | Kanagawa | Kochi | Kumamoto | Kyoto | Mie | Miyagi | Miyazaki | Nagano | Nagasaki | Nara | Niigata | Oita | Okayama | Okinawa | Osaka | Saga | Saitama | Shiga | Shimane | Shizuoka | Tochigi | Tokushima | Tokyo | Tottori | Toyama | Wakayama | Yamagata | Yamaguchi | Yamanashi | ||
| Regions of Japan | ||
| Hokkaido | Tohoku | Kantō | Chubu (Hokuriku - Koshinetsu - Tokai) | Kansai | Chugoku | Shikoku | Kyushu | ||
| Major Cities (Cities designated by government ordinance) | ||
| 23 wards of Tokyo | Chiba | Fukuoka | Hiroshima | Kawasaki | Kitakyushu | Kobe | Kyoto | Nagoya | Osaka | Saitama | Sapporo | Sendai | Shizuoka | Yokohama | ||
