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Nara Prefecture

Nara Prefecture (奈良県) is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kansai region of Honshu. Nara Prefecture has a population of 1,321,805 and has a geographic area of 3691 km2. Nara Prefecture borders Kyoto Prefecture to the north, Osaka Prefecture to the northwest, Wakayama Prefecture to the southwest, and Mie Prefecture to the east.

Nara is the capital and largest city of Nara Prefecture, with other major cities including Kashihara, Ikoma, and Yamatokōriyama. Nara Prefecture is located in the center of the Kii Peninsula on Japan's Pacific Ocean coast, and is one of only eight landlocked prefectures. Nara Prefecture has the distinction of having more UNESCO World Heritage listings than any other prefecture in Japan.

History
Nara Prefecture region is considered one of the oldest regions in Japan, having been in existence for thousands of years, and is widely viewed as the Japanese cradle of civilization. Like Kyoto, Nara was one of Imperial Japan's earliest capital cities. The current form of Nara Prefecture was officially created in 1887 when it became independent of Osaka Prefecture.

Historically, Nara Prefecture was also known as Yamato-no-kuni or Yamato Province.

Up to Nara Period
From the third century to the fourth century, a poorly documented political force existed at the foot of Mount Miwa, east of Nara Basin. It sought unification of most parts in Japan. Since the historical beginning of Japan, Yamato was its political center.

Ancient capitals of Japan were built on the land of Nara, namely Asuka-kyō, Fujiwara-kyō (694–710) and Heijō-kyō (most of 710–784). The capital cities of Fujiwara and Heijō are believed to have been modeled after Chinese capitals at the time, incorporating grid layout patterns. The royal court also established relations with Sui and then Tang dynasty China and sent students to the Middle Kingdom to learn high civilization. By 7th century, Nara accepted the many immigrants including refugees of Baekje who had escaped from war disturbances of the southern part of the Korean Peninsula. The first high civilization with royal patronage of Buddhism flourished in today's Nara city (710–784 AD).

Nara in the Heian period

In 784, Emperor Kanmu decided to relocate the capital to Nagaoka-kyō in Yamashiro Province, followed by another move in 794 to Heian-kyō, marking the start of the Heian period. The temples in Nara remained powerful beyond the move of political capital, thus giving Nara a synonym of "Nanto" (meaning "South Capital") as opposed to Heian-kyō, situated in the north. Close to the end of Heian period, Taira no Shigehira, a son of Taira no Kiyomori, was ordered by his father to depress the power of various parties, mainly Kōfuku-ji and Tōdai-ji, who were backing up an opposition group headed by Prince Mochihito. The movement led to a collision between the Taira and the Nara temples in 1180. This clash eventually led to Kōfuku-ji and Tōdai-ji being set on fire, resulting in vast destruction of architectural heritage.

Medieval Nara

At the rise of the Minamoto to its ruling seat and the opening of Kamakura shogunate, Nara enjoyed the support of Minamoto no Yoritomo toward restoration. Kōfuku-ji, being the "home temple" to the Fujiwara since its foundation, not only regained the power it had before but became a de facto regional chief of Yamato Province. With the reconstruction of Kōfuku-ji and Tōdai-ji, a town was growing again near the two temples.

The Nanboku-chō period, starting in 1336, brought more instability to Nara. As Emperor Go-Daigo chose Yoshino as his base, a power struggle arose in Kōfuku-ji with a group supporting the South and another siding the North court. Likewise, local clans were split into two. Kōfuku-ji recovered its control over the province for a short time at the surrender of the South Court in 1392, while the internal power game of the temple itself opened a way for the local samurai clans to spring up and fight with each other, gradually acquiring their own territories, thus diminishing the influence of Kōfuku-ji overall.

The Sengoku and Edo periods

Later, the whole province of Yamato got drawn into the confusion of the Sengoku period. Tōdai-ji was once again set on fire in 1567, when Matsunaga Hisahide, who was later appointed by Oda Nobunaga to the lord of Yamato Province, fought for supremacy against his former master Miyoshi family. Followed by short appointments of Tsutsui Junkei and Toyotomi Hidenaga by Toyotomi Hideyoshi to the lord, the Tokugawa shogunate ultimately ruled the city of Nara directly, and most parts of Yamato province with a few feudal lords allocated at Kōriyama, Takatori and other places. With industry and commerce developing in the 18th century, the economy of the province was incorporated into prosperous Osaka, the commercial capital of Japan at the time.

From the establishment of Nara Prefecture to the present
A first prefecture (briefly -fu in 1868, but -ken for most of the time) named Nara was established in the Meiji Restoration in 1868 as successor to the shogunate administration of the shogunate city and shogunate lands in Yamato. After the 1871 Abolition of the han system, Nara was merged with other prefectures (from former han, see List of Han) and cleared of ex-/enclaves to encompass all of Yamato province. In 1876, Nara was merged into Sakai which in turn became part of Osaka in 1881. In 1887, Nara became independent again, with Saisho Atsushi as the first governor. The first prefectural assembly of Nara was elected in the same year and opened its first session in 1888 in the gallery of the main hall of Tōdai temple.

In the 1889 Great Meiji mergers which subdivided all (then 45) prefectures into modern municipalities, Nara prefecture's 16 districts were subdivided into 154 municipalities: 10 towns and 144 villages. The first city in Nara was only established in 1898 when Nara Town from Soekami District was made district-independent to become Nara City (see List of mergers in Nara Prefecture and List of mergers in Osaka Prefecture).

The economic dependency to Osaka even characterizes today's Nara Prefecture, for many inhabitants commute to Osaka to work or study there.

Geography

Nara Prefecture is part of the Kansai, or Kinki, region of Japan, and is located in the middle of the Kii Peninsula on the western half of Honshu. Nara Prefecture is landlocked. It is bordered to the west by Wakayama Prefecture and Osaka Prefecture; on the north by Kyoto Prefecture and on the east by Mie Prefecture.

Nara Prefecture is 78.5 km from east to west and 103.6 km from north to south.

Most of the prefecture is covered by mountains and forests, leaving an inhabitable area of only 851 km2. The ratio of inhabitable area to total area is 23%, ranked 43rd among the 47 prefectures in Japan.

Nara Prefecture is bisected by the Japan Median Tectonic Line (MTL) running through its territory east to west, along the Yoshino River. On the northern side of the MTL is the so-called Inner Zone, where active faults running north to south are still shaping the landscape. The Ikoma Mountains in the northwest form the border with Osaka Prefecture. The Nara Basin, which lies to the east of these mountains, contains the highest concentration of population in Nara Prefecture. Further east are the Kasagi Mountains, which separate the Basin from the Yamato Highlands.

South of the MTL is the Outer Zone, comprising the Kii Mountains, which occupy about 60% of the land area of the prefecture. The Ōmine Range is in the center of the Kii Mountains, running north to south, with steep valleys on both sides. The tallest mountain in Nara Prefecture, and indeed in the Kansai region, is Mount Hakkyō. To the west, separating Nara Prefecture from Wakayama Prefecture, is the Obako Range, with peaks around 1300 m. To the east, bordering Mie Prefecture, is the Daikō Range, including Mount Ōdaigahara. This mountainous region is also home to a World Heritage Site, the Sacred Sites and Pilgrimage Routes in the Kii Mountain Range".

About 17% of the total land area of the prefecture is designated as National Park land, comprising the Yoshino-Kumano National Park, Kongō-Ikoma-Kisen, Kōya-Ryūjin, Murō-Akame-Aoyama, and Yamato-Aogaki Quasi-National Parks; and the Tsukigase-Kōnoyama, Yata, and Yoshinogawa-Tsuboro Prefectural Natural Parks.

Climate

In the Nara Basin, the climate has inland characteristics, as represented in the bigger temperature variance within the same day, and the difference of summer and winter temperatures. Winter temperatures average about 3 to 5 °C, and 25 to 28 °C in the summer with highest reaching close to 35 °C. There is not a single year over the last decade (since 1990, up to 2007) with more than 10 days of snowfall recorded by Nara Local Meteorological Observatory.

The climate in the rest of the prefecture are mountainous, and especially in the south, with below -5 °C being the extreme minimum in winter. Heavy rainfall is observed in summer. The annual accumulated rainfall ranges as much as 3000 to 5000 mm, which is among the heaviest in Japan.

Spring and fall are temperate. The mountainous region of Yoshino has been popular both historically and presently for its cherry blossoms in the spring. In the fall, the southern mountains are equally striking with the changing of the oak trees.

Municipalities
Since 2006, there are 39 municipalities in Nara Prefecture: twelve [by definition: district-independent] cities and seven remaining districts containing 15 towns and twelve villages:

Kansai Science City is located in the northwest.

Demographics

According to the 2005 Census of Japan, Nara Prefecture has a population of 1,421,310, which is a decrease of 1.5%, since the year 2000.

The decline continued in 2006, with another decrease of 4,987 people compared to 2005. This includes a natural decrease from previous year of 288 people (11,404 births minus 11,692 deaths) and a decrease due to net domestic migration of 4,627 people outbound from the prefecture, and a decrease of 72 registered foreigners. Net domestic migration has turned into a continuous outbound trend since 1998. The largest destinations of migration in 2005 were the prefectures of Kyoto, Tokyo, and Hyōgo, with respectively a net of 1,130,982 and 451 people moving over. The largest inbound migration was from Niigata Prefecture, contributing to a net increase of 39 people. 13.7% of its population were reported as under 15, 65.9% between 15 and 64, and 20.4% were 65 or older. Females made up approximately 52.5% of the population.

As of 2004, the average density of the prefecture is 387 people per km2. By districts, the so-called Yamato flat inland plain holds as much as about 90% of total population within the approximately 23% size of area in the north-west, including the Nara Basin, representing a density of 1,531 people per km2. To the contrast, the combined district Gojō and Yoshino District occupies almost 64% of the land, while only 6% of people lives there, resulting in a density of 39 people km2.

Nara prefecture had the highest rate in Japan of people commuting outbound for work, at 30.9% in 2000. A similar tendency is seen in prefectures such as Saitama, Chiba, and Kanagawa, all three of them having over 20% of people commuting for other prefectures.

Politics

 * A governor and members of prefectural assembly is elected by citizens in accordance with the Local Autonomy Law.
 * Shōgo Arai was governor between 2007 and 2023, a former LDP member of the national House of Councillors. In the April 2019 gubernatorial election, he was re-elected to a fourth term with major party support (LDP, DPFP, Kōmeitō) with 47.5% of the vote against former Democratic Diet member and vice-minister Kiyoshige Maekawa (32.3%) and independent physician Minoru Kawashima (20.2%).
 * In 2023, Makoto Yamashita was elected governor. This was the first time Nippon Ishi gained a governor outside of Osaka.
 * As of 2019, there are 43 seats in the Nara Prefectural Assembly, elected in 16 constituencies (4 single-member, 12 multi-member). After the April 2019 assembly election, the LDP is by far the largest party with 21 members while no other party won more than four seats, but its members are split between several parliamentary groups; by group, the composition as of May 2019 was: LDP 10, LDP Nara 9, Sōsei Nara [of independents] 5, Shinsei Nara [mainly DPFP] 5, JCP 4, Nippon Ishin no Kai 4, Kōmeitō 3, LDP Kizuna 2.
 * There was a clear tendency seen through the results of Lower House election in 2005, that the younger generation executes its voting right much less compared to the older. Only 48.8% of citizens age 20–29 voted, whereas all older generations (grouped by decades) votes more than its younger, reaching the highest voting rate of 86.3% at ages 60–69. The only exception was the 72.1% voting right executed by citizens of 70 or older. The overall average of the prefecture who voted was yet higher, at 70.3%, than that of nationwide average, 67.5%.
 * As of October 2019, Nara's directly elected delegation to the National Diet is all-LDP, namely:
 * in the House of Representatives where Nara has lost one district in a 2017 reapportionment
 * for the 1st district in the North consisting of most of Nara City and Ikoma City: Shigeki Kobayashi (LDP, 2nd term) who narrowly defeated long-time incumbent Sumio Mabuchi in the 2017 House of Representatives election,
 * for the 2nd district with southern suburbs (and a small part) of the capital: Sanae Takaichi (LDP, 8th term) who has served as minister in several cabinets and was re-elected with 60% of the vote in 2017,
 * for the 3rd district which covers the less urbanized, central and Southern parts of Nara: Taidō Tanose (LDP, 3rd term), member for the now-abolished 4th district before 2017,
 * in the House of Councillors where the Nara district is one of the often decisive FPTP single-member districts
 * in the 2016–2022 class: Kei Satō (LDP, 1st term) who defeated incumbent Kiyoshige Maekawa in 2016 by a twelve-point-margin in a three-way contest with an Osaka Ishin no Kai challenger,
 * in the 2019–2025 class: Iwao Horii (LDP, 2nd term) who defended the seat 55% to 40% against an "independent", joint centre-left (CDP, DPFP, SDP) challenger in 2019.

Economy

The 2004 total gross prefecture product (GPP) for Nara was ¥3.8 trillion, an 0.1% growth over previous year. The per capita income was ¥2.6 million, which is a 1.3% decrease from previous year. The 2004 total gross prefecture product (GPP) for Nara was ¥3.8 trillion, an 0.1% growth over previous year. Manufacturing has the biggest share in the GPP of Nara with 20.2% of share, followed by services (19.1%) and real estates (16.3%). The share of agriculture including forestry and fishery was a mere 1.0%, only above mining, which is quasi-inexistent in Nara.

 * Tourism is treated by the prefectural government as one of the most important features of Nara, because of its natural environment and historical significance.
 * Nara is famed for its Kaki persimmon. Strawberry and tea are some other popular products of the prefecture, while rice and vegetables, including spinach, tomato, eggplants, and others are the dominant in terms of amount of production.
 * Nara is a center for the production of instruments used in conducting traditional Japanese artforms. Brush and ink (sumi) are the best known products from Nara for calligraphy.  Wooden or bamboo instruments, especially from Takayama area (in Ikoma city) are famous products for tea ceremony.
 * Goldfish from Yamatokōriyama in Nara have been a traditional aquacultural product since the 18th century.
 * Due to its rich history, Nara is also the location of many archeological digs, with many famous ones being located in the village of Asuka.

Culture
The culture of Nara is tied to the Kansai region in which it is located. However, like each of the other prefectures of Kansai, Nara has unique aspects to its culture, parts of which stem from its long history dating back to the Nara period.

Dialect
There are large differences in dialect between the north/central region of the prefecture, where Nara city is located, and the Okunoya district in the south. The north/central dialect is close to Osaka's dialect, whilst Okunoya's dialect favours a Tokyo-style accent. The lengthening of vowel sounds in the Okunoya dialect is unseen in other dialects of the Kinki region, making it a special feature.

Food culture
Foods particular to Nara Prefecture include:
 * Narazuke, a method of pickling vegetables
 * Miwa sōmen, a type of wheat noodle
 * Chagayu, a rice porridge made with green tea
 * Kakinoha zushi, sushi wrapped in persimmon leaves
 * Meharizushi, rice balls wrapped in pickled takana leaves

Traditional arts
The following are recognized by the Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry as being traditional arts of Nara:
 * Takayama Tea Whisk (Bamboo item category, recognized in 1975)
 * Nara Calligraphy Brush (Stationery category, recognized in 1977)

Museums

 * Nara National Museum
 * Heijō Palace Museum
 * Nara Prefectural Museum of Art
 * Kashihara Archaeological Institute Museum

Universities

 * Nara Women's University
 * Nara Medical University
 * Nara University of Education
 * Nara University
 * Nara Prefectural University
 * Nara Sangyo University (Nara Industrial University)
 * Nara Institute of Science and Technology
 * Kio University
 * Tezukayama University
 * Tenri University
 * Hakuhō College

Sports
The sports teams listed below are based in Nara.

Association football
 * Nara Club (Nara)

Basketball
 * Bambitious Nara (Nara)

Tourism
Many jinja (Shinto shrines), Buddhist temples, and kofun exist in Nara Prefecture, making it is a centre for tourism. Moreover, many world heritage sites, such as the temple Tōdai-ji and Kasuga Shrine, exist in the capital city of Nara.

Railroad

 * JR West
 * Yamatoji Line
 * Kansai Line
 * Manyo Mahoroba Line
 * Wakayama Line
 * Kintetsu
 * Nara Line
 * Keihanna Line
 * Kyoto Line
 * Kashihara Line
 * Ikoma Line
 * Ikoma Cable Line
 * Tenri Line
 * Osaka Line
 * Tawaramoto Line
 * Minami Osaka Line
 * Gose Line
 * Yoshino Line

from Nara and Tenri

 * Shinjuku, Tokyo
 * Tokyo Station
 * Yokohama
 * Tokyo Disneyland in Urayasu
 * Makuhari, Chiba Prefecture
 * Nagoya
 * Osaka International Airport
 * Kansai International Airport

from Yamato Yagi and Gose

 * Shinjuku, Tokyo
 * Shingu
 * Totsukawa

Expressways and toll roads

 * Nishi-Meihan Expressway
 * Meihan Road
 * Keinawa Expressway
 * Second Hanna(Osaka-Nara) Road
 * South Hanna Road

National highways

 * Route 24
 * Route 25 (Osaka-Tenri-Nabari-Yokkaichi)
 * Route 163
 * Route 165
 * Route 166
 * Route 168 (Hirakata-Ikoma-Kashiba-Gojo-Totsukawa-Shingu)
 * Route 169 (Nara-Tenri-Oyodo-Yoshino-Shingu)
 * Route 308
 * Route 309
 * Route 310
 * Route 311
 * Route 368
 * Route 369
 * Route 370
 * Route 371
 * Route 422
 * Route 425

title: Nara Prefecture


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Wakayama Prefecture

Wakayama Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kansai region of Honshu. Wakayama Prefecture has a population of 944,320 and has a geographic area of 4724 km2. Wakayama Prefecture borders Osaka Prefecture to the north, and Mie Prefecture and Nara Prefecture to the northeast.

Wakayama is the capital and largest city of Wakayama Prefecture, with other major cities including Tanabe, Hashimoto, and Kinokawa. Wakayama Prefecture is located on the southwestern coast of the Kii Peninsula on the Kii Channel, connecting the Pacific Ocean and Seto Inland Sea, across from Tokushima Prefecture on the island of Shikoku.

History
Present-day Wakayama is mostly the western part of the province of Kii.

1953 flood disaster
On July 17–18, 1953, a torrential heavy rain occurred, followed by collapse of levees, river flooding and landslides in a wide area. Many bridges and houses were destroyed. According to an officially confirmed report by the Government of Japan, 1,015 people died, with 5,709 injured and 7,115 houses lost.

Geography
As of 31 March 2020, 13 percent of the total land area of the prefecture was designated as Natural Parks, namely the Setonaikai and Yoshino-Kumano National Parks; Kongō-Ikoma-Kisen and Kōya-Ryūjin Quasi-National Parks; and Enju Kaigan, Hatenashi Sanmyaku, Hikigawa, Jōgamori Hokodai, Kōyasanchō Ishimichi-Tamagawakyō, Kozagawa, Nishiarida, Oishi Kōgen, Ōtōsan, Ryūmonzan, Shiramisan-Wadagawakyō, and Shirasaki Kaigan Prefectural Natural Parks.

Cities
Nine cities are in Wakayama Prefecture:

Towns and villages
These are the towns and villages in each district:

Demographics
Since 1996, population of Wakayama Prefecture has kept declining, and since 2010, it has been the only prefecture in Kansai region with population below 1,000,000. In 2017, Wakayama is ranked 40th by population in Japan with a population of 944,320. In the 2020 census, close to 32% of the population was over 65 years of age - the highest percentage in Japan and one of the highest for national subdivisions worldwide.

Politics
The current governor Shūhei Kishimoto was elected on 27 November 2022.

List of governors of Wakayama
State-appointed governors:

 * Masaomi Tsuda (津田正臣): from 25 November 1871 to 25 January 1872
 * Hidetomo Kitajima (北島秀朝): from 25 January 1872 to 13 October 1873
 * Kunikiyo Kōyama (神山郡廉): from 13 October 1873 to 20 October 1873
 * Kanae Matsumoto (松本鼎): from 20 October 1873 to 26 December 1889
 * Tadaakira Ishii (石井忠亮): from 26 December 1889 to 9 April 1891
 * Sadaaki Senda (千田貞暁): from 9 April 1891 to 15 January 1892
 * Morikata Oki (沖守固): from 15 January 1892 to 7 April 1897
 * Kan'ichi Kubota (久保田貫一): from 7 April 1897 to 8 October 1898
 * Masaaki Nomura (野村政明): from 8 October 1898 to 7 April 1899
 * Hisashi Ogura (小倉久): from 7 April 1899 to 25 October 1900
 * Shin'ichirō Tsubaki (椿蓁一郎): from 25 October 1900 to 29 June 1903
 * Ienori Kiyosu (清棲家教): from 29 June 1903 to 11 January 1907
 * Takio Izawa (伊沢多喜男): from 11 January 1907 to 30 July 1909
 * Chikaharu Kawakami (川上親晴): from 30 July 1909 to 4 September 1911
 * Takeji Kawamura (川村竹治): from 4 September 1911 to 9 June 1914
 * Kogorō Kanokogi (鹿子木小五郎): from June 1914 to 17 December 1917
 * Tokikazu Ikematsu (池松時和): from 17 December 1917 to 3 February 1920
 * Shinzō Obara (小原新三): from 3 February 1920 to 6 June 1923
 * Yoshibumi Satake (佐竹義文): from 6 June 1923 to 24 June 1924

 * Kyūichi Hasegawa (長谷川久一): from 24 June 1924 to 22 March 1927
 * Tokutarō Shimizu (清水徳太郎): from 22 March 1927 to 17 May 1927
 * Umekichi Miyawaki (宮脇梅吉): from 17 May 1927 to 17 November 1927
 * Taeru Node (野手耐): from 17 November 1927 to 5 July 1929
 * Senzō Tomobe (友部泉蔵): from 5 July 1929 to 26 August 1930
 * Toshikatsu Kurahara (蔵原敏捷): from 26 August 1930 to 18 December 1931
 * Toshiki Karasawa (唐沢俊樹): from 18 December 1931 to 28 July 1932
 * Ryōsaku Shimizu (清水良策): from 28 July 1932 to 10 November 1934
 * Nagakazu Fujioka (藤岡長和): from 10 November 1934 to 22 April 1936
 * Tokiji Yoshinaga (吉永時次): from 22 April 1936 to 11 January 1939
 * Shigeo Shimizu (清水重夫): from 11 January 1939 to 15 October 1940
 * Jirō Imamatsu (今松治): from 15 October 1940 to 20 October 1941
 * Seizō Hirose (広瀬永造): from 20 October 1941 to 1 August 1944
 * Chiaki Kobayashi (小林千秋): from 1 August 1944 to 27 October 1945
 * Uichirō Koike (小池卯一郎): from 27 October 1945 to 25 January 1946
 * Masao Kanai (金井正夫): from 25 January 1946 to 8 July 1946
 * Wakichi Kawakami (川上和吉): from 8 July 1946 to 28 February 1947
 * Yoshimaro Takahashi (高橋良麿): from 28 February 1947 to 15 April 1947

Publicly-elected governors:

 * Shinji Ono (小野真次): from 19 April 1947 to 22 April 1967
 * Masao Ohashi (大橋正雄): from 23 April 1967 to 4 October 1975
 * Shiro Kariya (仮谷志良): from 23 November 1975 to 22 November 1995
 * Isamu Nishiguchi (西口勇): from 23 November 1995 to 13 July 2000

 * Yoshiki Kimura (木村良樹): from 3 September 2000 to 2 December 2006
 * Yoshinobu Nisaka (仁坂吉伸): from 17 December 2006 to 16 December 2022
 * Shūhei Kishimoto: (岸本周平) from 17 December 2022 to present

Culture
Mount Kōya (高野山) in the Ito District is the headquarters of the Shingon sect of Japanese Buddhism. It is home to one of the first Japanese style Buddhist temples in Japan and remains a pilgrimage site and an increasingly popular tourist destination as people flock to see its ancient temples set amidst the towering cedar trees at the top of the mountain. The Sacred sites and pilgrimage routes in the Kii Mountain Range extend for miles throughout the prefecture and together have been recognized as Japan's 11th UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The Kumano Shrines are on the southern tip of the prefecture. Tomogashima (a cluster of four islands) is part of the prefecture.

Orange
Wakayama Prefecture ranks first in the production of oranges in Japan. Wakayama has its own brand of oranges, which is produced in Arida District and called 'Arida-Orange'. Arida District, where oranges have been produced for more than 400 years, yields about half of the orange crops in Wakayama today. Furthermore, the yield of Arida-Oranges accounts for about 10 percent of Japanese domestic production of oranges.

Japanese apricot (Ume)
According to the survey by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries of Japan, Wakayama stands first in the production of Japanese apricots (梅) in Japan. As of 2016, Wakayama made up about 70 percent of Japanese domestic production of Japanese apricots.

Sister relationships
Wakayama Prefecture has friendship and sister relationships with six places outside Japan:
 * Shandong, People's Republic of China
 * Pyrénées-Orientales, France
 * Florida, United States
 * Sinaloa, Mexico
 * Galicia, Spain
 * Sichuan, People's Republic of China

Tourism
Wakayama Prefecture has hot springs such as Shirahama, Kawayu, and Yunomine Onsen.

Rail

 * JR West
 * Hanwa Line
 * Kinokuni Line
 * Wakayama Line
 * JR Central
 * Kisei Line
 * Nankai
 * Nankai Line
 * Koya Line
 * Kada Line
 * Kishu Railway
 * Wakayama Electric Railway

Expressway

 * Hanwa Expressway
 * Keinawa Expressway
 * Yuasa Gobo Road
 * Nachi Katsuura Road

National Highway

 * Route 24
 * Route 26
 * Route 42
 * Route 168 (Shingu-Gojo-Ikoma-Hirakata)
 * Route 169 (Shingu-Kumano-Kawakami-Yoshino-Asuka-Kashihara-Nara)
 * Route 311 (Kamitonda-Tanabe-Shingu-kumano-Owase)
 * Route 370 (Kainan-Hashimoto-Gojo-Uda-Nara)
 * Route 371 (Kawachinagano-Hashimoto-Koya-Kushimoto)
 * Route 424

Ferry

 * Wakayama-Tokushima

Airport

 * Nanki Shirahama Airport

Universities

 * Wakayama University
 * Koyasan University
 * Kinki University
 * Wakayama Medical University

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Wakayama Prefecture


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Kyoto Prefecture

Kyoto Prefecture (京都府) is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kansai region of Honshu. Kyoto Prefecture has a population of 2,561,358 and has a geographic area of 4612 km2. Kyoto Prefecture borders Fukui Prefecture to the northeast, Shiga Prefecture to the east, Mie Prefecture to the southeast, Nara Prefecture and Osaka Prefecture to the south, and Hyōgo Prefecture to the west.

Kyoto is the capital and largest city of Kyoto Prefecture, with other major cities including Uji, Kameoka, and Maizuru. Kyoto Prefecture is located on the Sea of Japan coast and extends to the southeast towards the Kii Peninsula, covering territory of the former provinces of Yamashiro, Tamba, and Tango. Kyoto Prefecture is centered on the historic Imperial capital of Kyoto, and is one of Japan's two "prefectures" using the designation fu rather than the standard ken for prefectures. Kyoto has made Kyoto Prefecture one of the most popular tourism destinations in Japan for national and international tourists, and 21% of the prefecture's land area was designated as Natural Parks. Kyoto Prefecture forms part of the Keihanshin metropolitan area, the second-most-populated region in Japan after the Greater Tokyo area and one of the world's most productive regions by GDP.

History

Until the Meiji Restoration, the area of Kyoto Prefecture was known as Yamashiro.

For most of its history, the city of Kyoto was Japan's Imperial capital. The city's history can be traced back as far as the 6th century. In 544, the Aoi Matsuri was held in Kyoto to pray for good harvest and good weather.

Kyoto did not start out as Japan's capital. A noteworthy earlier capital was Nara. In 741, Emperor Shōmu moved the capital briefly to Kuni-kyo, between the cities of Nara and Kyoto, in present-day Kyoto Prefecture. In 784, the capital was moved to Nagaokakyō, also in present-day Kyoto Prefecture. In 794, Emperor Kanmu moved the capital to Heian-kyō, and this was the beginning of the current-day city of Kyoto. Even today, almost all of the streets, houses, stores, temples and shrines in Kyoto exist where they were placed in this year.

Although in 1192 real political power shifted to Kamakura, where a samurai clan established the shogunate, Kyoto remained the imperial capital as the powerless emperors and their court continued to be seated in the city. Imperial rule was briefly restored in 1333, but another samurai clan established a new shogunate in Kyoto three years later.

In 1467, a great civil war, the Ōnin War, took place inside Kyoto, and most of the town was burned down. Japan plunged into the age of warring feudal lords. A new strong man, Tokugawa Ieyasu, established the shogunate at Edo (today's Tokyo) in 1603.

In the 15th century AD, tea-jars were brought by the shōguns to Uji in Kyoto from the Philippines which was used in the Japanese tea ceremony.

The Meiji Restoration returned Japan to imperial rule in 1868. Emperor Meiji, who was now the absolute sovereign, went to stay in Tokyo during the next year. The imperial court has not returned to Kyoto since then. During the instigation of Fuhanken Sanchisei in 1868, the prefecture received its suffix fu. The subsequent reorganization of the old provincial system merged the former Tango Province, Yamashiro Province and the eastern part of Tanba Province into today's Kyoto Prefecture.

Although many Japanese major cities were heavily bombed during World War II, the old capital escaped such devastation. During the occupation, the U.S. Sixth Army and I Corps were headquartered in Kyoto.

Geography
Kyoto Prefecture is almost in the center of Honshu and of Japan. It covers an area of 4612.19 km2, which is 1.2% of Japan. Kyoto is the 31st largest prefecture by size. To the north, it faces the Sea of Japan and Fukui Prefecture. To the south, it faces Osaka and Nara Prefectures. To the east, it faces Mie and Shiga Prefectures. To its west is Hyōgo Prefecture. The prefecture is separated in the middle by the Tanba Mountains. This makes its climate very different in the north and south.

21% of the prefecture's land area was designated as Natural Parks, namely Sanin Kaigan National Park; Biwako, Kyoto Tamba Kogen, Tango-Amanohashidate-Ōeyama and Wakasa Wan Quasi-National Parks; and Hozukyō, Kasagiyama, and Rurikei Prefectural Natural Parks.

Municipalities

 * Cities

Fifteen cities are located in Kyoto Prefecture: Kansai Science City is located in the southwest.

These are the towns and villages in each district:
 * Towns and villages

Religion
According to Agency for Cultural Affairs research in 2020, over 60% believe in Shinto and Buddhism.

Politics
The current governor of Kyoto is Takatoshi Nishiwaki, a former vice minister of the Reconstruction Agency. He has been elected in April 2018.

The previous governor of Kyoto is former Home Affairs Ministry bureaucrat Keiji Yamada. He has been reelected to a fourth term in April 2014 with support from the major non-Communist parties against only one JCP-supported challenger.

The prefectural assembly has 60 members from 25 electoral districts and is still elected in unified local elections (last round: 2019). As of September 2020, it was composed as follows: Liberal Democratic Party 30, Japanese Communist Party 12, Democratic Party 11, Kōmeitō 5, Japan Restoration Party 2.

Kyoto's delegation to the National Diet consists of six members of the House of Representatives and four members (two per election) of the House of Councillors. After the national elections of 2016, 2017 and 2019, the prefecture is represented by four Liberal Democrats and two Democrats in the lower house, and two Liberal Democrats, one Democrat and one Communist in the upper house.

Prefectural symbols
The prefectural flower of Kyoto is the weeping cherry. The Kitayama Sugi is the official tree, and the streaked shearwater the bird that symbolizes the prefecture.

Defense facilities
On 1 August 2013, prefectural and municipal authorities gave consent for a USFJ missile monitoring station to be set up in the city of Kyōtango. It will be co-located with a JASDF facility already based in the city. At least initially, its primary sensor will be a mobile X-band radar used to gather data on ballistic missile launches which will then be relayed by the station to warships equipped with Aegis air defense systems and to ground-based interceptor missile sites. A hundred and sixty personnel will be based at the station.

Economy
Kyoto prefecture's economy is supported by industries that create value that is unique to Kyoto, such as the tourism and traditional industries supported by 1,200 years of history and culture, as well as high-technology industries that combine the technology of Kyoto's traditional industries with new ideas.

Northern Kyoto on the Tango Peninsula has fishing and water transportation, and midland Kyoto has agriculture and forestry. The prefecture produces 13% of the domestic sake and green tea. Japan's largest vertical farm is located in the prefecture.

The Kyoto-based manufacturing industry holds shares of Japan's high-technology product markets and others. As of 2021, eight Forbes Global 2000 companies were located in Kyoto prefecture: Nintendo, Nidec, Kyocera, Murata Manufacturing, Omron, Rohm, Bank of Kyoto, SCREEN Holdings. Takara Holdings, GS Yuasa, Mitsubishi Logisnext, Maxell, and Kyoto Animation are also based in the prefecture.

the minimum wage in the prefecture was ¥937 per hour.

Colleges and universities

 * Bukkyo University
 * Doshisha University
 * Doshisha Women's College of Liberal Arts
 * Doshisha Women's Junior College
 * Hanazono University
 * Heian Jogakuin University
 * Ikenobo College
 * Kacho College
 * Kyoto Bunkyo University
 * Kyoto Bunkyo Junior College
 * Kyoto City University of Arts
 * Kyoto College of Economics
 * Kyoto College of Graduate Studies for Informatics
 * Kyoto College of Medical Science
 * Kyoto College of Nursing
 * Kyoto Institute of Technology
 * Kyoto Junior College of Foreign Languages
 * Kyoto Kacho University
 * Kyoto Koka Women's University
 * Kyoto Koka Women's College
 * Kyoto Notre Dame University
 * Kyoto Pharmaceutical University
 * Kyoto Prefectural University
 * Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine
 * Kyoto Saga Art College
 * Kyoto Saga University of Arts
 * Kyoto Sangyo University
 * Kyoto Seika University
 * Kyoto Seizan College
 * Kyoto Tachibana University
 * Kyoto University
 * Kyoto University of Advanced Science
 * Kyoto University of the Arts
 * Kyoto Arts and Crafts University
 * Kyoto University of Education
 * Kyoto University of Foreign Studies
 * Kyoto Women's University
 * Meiji University of Integrative Medicine
 * Ōtani University
 * Otani University Junior College
 * Ritsumeikan University
 * Ryukoku University
 * Ryukoku University Faculty of Junior College
 * Shuchiin University
 * University of Fukuchiyama

Railways

 * JR Central
 * Tōkaidō Shinkansen—Kyōto Station
 * JR West
 * Kyoto Line
 * Biwako Line
 * Kosei Line
 * Nara Line
 * Kansai Line (Kizu-Kamo)
 * Sagano Line
 * Sanin Line
 * Fukuchiyama Line
 * Maizuru Line
 * Obama Line
 * Keihan
 * Keihan Line
 * Uji Line
 * Keishin Line
 * Outou Line
 * Hankyu
 * Kyoto Line
 * Arashiyama Line
 * Kintetsu
 * Kyoto Line
 * Kyoto Municipal Subway
 * Karasuma Line
 * Tōzai Line
 * Sagano Scenic Railway (Arashiyama-Kameoka)
 * Kyoto Tango Railway
 * Miyafuku Line
 * Miyamai Line
 * Miyatoyo Line

City Tram

 * Randen
 * Arashiyama Line
 * Kitano Line
 * Eiden
 * Eizan Line
 * Kurama Line

SeaPorts

 * Maizuru Port - Mainly international container terminal and ferry route to Hokkaido (Otaru and Tomakomai).

Expressways

 * Meishin Expressway
 * Shin-Meishin Expressway
 * Second Keihan Highway (Daini-Keihan Road)
 * Keiji(Kyoto-Shiga) Bypass
 * Maizuru Wakasa Expressway
 * Keinawa(Kyoto-Nara-Wakayama) Expressway
 * Kyoto-Jukan Expressway
 * San'in Kinki Expressway

National highways

 * Route 1 (Route 8)
 * Route 9 (Kyoto-Fukuchiyama-Tottori-Yonago-Izumo-Hamada-Yamaguchi)
 * Route 24 (Kyoto-Nara-Kashihara-Hashimoto-Wakayama)
 * Route 27 (Tanba-Maizuru-Tsuruga)
 * Route 162
 * Route 163
 * Route 171 (Kyoto-Takatsuki-Minoo-Itami-Nishinomiya)
 * Route 173
 * Route 175 (Akashi-Nishiwaki-Fukuchiyama-Maizuru)
 * Route 176 (Osaka-Sanda-Sasayama-Fukuchiyama-Miyazu)
 * Route 178
 * Route 307
 * Route 312
 * Route 372 (Kameoka-Sasayama-Kasai-Himeji)
 * Route 423
 * Route 426
 * Route 429
 * Route 477
 * Route 478

Culture
Kyoto has been, and still remains, Japan's cultural center. For over 1000 years it was Japan's capital. When the capital was changed to Tokyo, Kyoto remained Japan's cultural capital. The local government proposes a plan to move the Agency for Cultural Affairs to Kyoto and to regard Tokyo as the capital of politics and economy and Kyoto as the capital of culture. See Culture of Japan.

Sports
The sports teams listed below are based in Kyoto.

 * Football (soccer)
 * Kyoto Sanga F.C. (J1 League)
 * Ococias Kyoto AC (Kansai Soccer League)
 * AS. Laranja Kyoto (Kansai Soccer League)

 * Basketball
 * Kyoto Hannaryz (B.League)

 * Rugby
 * Mitsubishi Motors Kyoto Red Evolutions (Top West)
 * Shimadzu Breakers (Top West)
 * Unitika Phoenix (Top West)

Tourism
Kyoto City is one of the most popular tourist spots in Japan, and many people from far and wide visit there. Along with Tokyo, Kyoto is a favorite location for the graduation trip of Junior High and High schools.

Some of the festivals held in Kyoto are Aoi Matsuri from 544, Gion Matsuri from 869, Ine Matsuri from the Edo-era, Daimonji Gozan Okuribi from 1662, and Jidai Matsuri from 1895. Every shrine and temple holds some sort of event, and many of them are open for public viewing.

Sister Autonomous Administrative division
Kyoto Prefecture has sister relationships with these places:

 * Shaanxi Province, China
 * 🇮🇩 Yogyakarta Special Region, Indonesia
 * 🇺🇸 Oklahoma, United States
 * 🇷🇺 Leningrad Oblast, Russia
 * Edinburgh, Scotland
 * 🇫🇷 Occitanie, France
 * 🇨🇦 Quebec, Canada

These relationships are distinct from those of cities in Kyoto Prefecture with other cities.

title: Kyoto Prefecture


text:
Talk:Independent Television Authority

Untitled
Company names have now been expanded to their full form, e.g. Television South West|TSW, except for ABC which I'll have to get round to later as it's referred to in more places! Arwel 03:30 Feb 6, 2003 (UTC)

"ITV2", the second commercial channel, did not begin until 1982, under the guise of Channel 4
Channel 4 wasn't a guise for ITV2. It was, rather, the Annan report's open broadcasting authority, not connected with ITV but state-owned. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.151.103.159 (talk) 10:21, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

title: Talk:Independent Television Authority


text:
Mie Prefecture

Mie Prefecture (三重県) is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kansai region of Honshu. Mie Prefecture has a population of 1,781,948 and has a geographic area of 5774 km2. Mie Prefecture is bordered by Gifu Prefecture to the north, Shiga Prefecture and Kyoto Prefecture to the northwest, Nara Prefecture to the west, Wakayama Prefecture to the southwest, and Aichi Prefecture to the east.

Tsu is the capital and Yokkaichi is the largest city of Mie Prefecture, with other major cities including Suzuka, Matsusaka, Ise, and Kuwana. Mie Prefecture is located on the eastern coast of the Kii Peninsula, forming the western side of Ise Bay which features the mouths of the Kiso Three Rivers. Mie Prefecture is a popular tourism destination home to Nagashima Spa Land, Suzuka International Racing Course, and some of the oldest and holiest sites in Shinto, the traditional religion of Japan, including the Ise Grand Shrine and the Tsubaki Grand Shrine.

History

Until the Meiji Restoration, the area that is now Mie Prefecture was made up of Ise Province, Shima Province, Iga Province, and part of Kii Province.

Evidence of human habitation in Mie dates back more than 10,000 years. During the Jōmon and Yayoi periods, agricultural communities began to form along the river and coastal areas of the region. Ise Shrine is said to have been established during the Yayoi period, and in the 7th century the Saikū Imperial Residence was built in what is now Meiwa Town to serve as both a residence and administrative centre for the Saiō, an Imperial Princess who served as High Priestess of Ise Shrine.

During the Edo period, the area now known as Mie Prefecture consisted of several feudal domains, each ruled by an appointed lord. Transport networks, including the Tokaido and Ise Roads, were built. Port towns such as Ohminato, Kuwana and Anōtsu, posting stations and castle towns flourished. Pilgrimages to Ise Shrine also became very popular.

After the Meiji Restoration, the former provinces of Ise, Shima and Iga as well as a portion of eastern Kii, were organized and reorganized repeatedly. In 1871, the area from the Kiso Three Rivers in the north to present-day Tsu became Anōtsu Prefecture, and the area south of that became Watarai Prefecture. In 1872, the Anōtsu prefectural seat moved from Tsu to Yokkaichi, and the prefecture itself was renamed Mie. For a variety of reasons, including the strong likelihood that Mie would eventually merge with Watarai, the prefectural seat returned to Tsu the following year, and Mie Prefecture took its present-day form in 1876, when it merged with its southern neighbor.

The name Mie supposedly was taken from a comment about the region made by Yamato Takeru on his way back from conquering the eastern regions.

In 1959, many people died as parts of Mie were devastated by the Ise-wan Typhoon, the strongest typhoon to hit Japan in recorded history. Crops were destroyed, sea walls ruined, roads and railways damaged and a substantial number of people were injured or left homeless.

In May 2016, the city of Shima hosted the 42nd G7 summit, the third summit without the presence of Russia.

Geography

Mie Prefecture forms the eastern part of the Kii Peninsula, and borders on Aichi, Gifu, Shiga, Kyoto, Nara, and Wakayama. It is considered part of the Kansai and Tōkai regions due to its geographical proximity to Aichi Prefecture and its cultural influence from Kansai, such as the fact that Kansai dialect is spoken in Mie. Traditionally, though, the Iga region of Mie is considered to have always been a part of Kansai.

Mie Prefecture measures 170 km from north to south, and 80 km from east to west, and includes five distinct geographical areas:

 * 1) the north-west of Mie consists of the Suzuka Mountains
 * 2) along the coast of Ise Bay from the Aichi border to Ise City lies the Ise Plain, where most of the population of Mie live
 * 3) south of the Ise Plain is the Shima Peninsula
 * 4) bordering Nara in the central-west is the Iga Basin
 * 5) running from central Mie to its southern borders is the Nunobiki Mountainous Region.

Mie has a coastline that stretches 1094.9 km and, as of 2000, Mie's 5776.44 km2 landmass is 64.8 percent forest, 11.5 percent agriculture, 6 percent residential area, 3.8 percent roads, and 3.6 percent rivers. The remaining 10.3 percent are not classified.

The Ise Plain has a relatively moderate climate, averaging 14 to 15 C for the year. The Iga Basin has more daily temperature variance and averages temperatures 1 to 2 degrees cooler than the Ise Plain. Southern Mie, south of the Shima Peninsula, has a warmer Pacific marine climate, with Owase Region having one of the heaviest rainfall figures for all of Japan.

36% of the total area of the prefecture comprised designated Natural Parks, namely:

 * Ise-Shima National Park
 * Yoshino-Kumano National Park
 * Murō-Akame-Aoyama Quasi-National Park
 * Suzuka Quasi-National Park
 * Akame Ichishikyō Prefectural Natural Park
 * Ise-no-Umi Prefectural Natural Park
 * Kahadakyō Prefectural Natural Park
 * Okuise Miyagawakyō Prefectural Natural Park
 * Suigō Prefectural Natural Park

Municipalities
Since 2006, Mie consists of 29 municipalities: 14 cities and 15 towns.

Mergers
When the modern municipalities were introduced in 1889, Mie initially consisted of 336 municipalities: 1 (by definition: district-level) city and 21 districts with 18 towns and 317 villages. With the Great Shōwa mergers of the 1950s, the number of municipalities in Mie had dropped to 88 by 1956. The Great Heisei mergers of the 2000s reduced the total from 69 to 29 between 2000 and 2006.

Economy
Mie Prefecture has traditionally been a link between east and west Japan, thanks largely to the Tokaido and Ise Pilgrimage Roads. Traditional handicrafts such as Iga Braid, Yokkaichi Banko Pottery, Suzuka Ink, Iga Pottery and Ise Katagami flourished. With 65% of the prefecture consisting of forests and with over 1000 km of coastline, Mie has a long been associated with forestry and seafood industries. Mie also produces tea, beef, cultured pearls and fruit, mainly mandarin oranges. Food production companies include Azuma Foods.

Northern Mie is home to a number of manufacturing industries, mainly transport machinery manufacturing (vehicles and ships) and heavy chemical industries such as oil refineries. As well as this, Mie Prefecture is expanding into more advanced industries including the manufacture of semiconductors and liquid crystal displays. In Suzuka, the Honda Motor Company maintains a factory established in 1960 that built the Honda Civic, as well as other vehicles.

Universities

 * Yokkaichi
 * Yokkaichi University
 * Yokkaichi Nursing and Medical Care University
 * Suzuka
 * Suzuka International University
 * Suzuka University of Medical Science
 * Suzuka National College of Technology
 * Tsu
 * Mie University
 * Mie Prefectural College of Nursing
 * Matsusaka
 * Mie Chukyo University
 * Ise
 * Kogakkan University
 * Toba
 * Toba National College of Maritime Technology

Rail

 * JR Central
 * Kansai Line (Nagoya-Kameyama)
 * Kisei Line
 * Sangu Line
 * JR West
 * Kansai Line (Kameyama-Nara)
 * Kusatsu Line (Tsuge Station)
 * Kintetsu
 * Nagoya Line
 * Osaka Line
 * Yamada Line
 * Toba Line
 * Shima Line
 * Yunoyama Line
 * Uchibe Line
 * Hachioji Line
 * Suzuka Line
 * Yoro Railway
 * Iga Railway
 * Ise Railway
 * Sangi Railway

Expressways and toll roads

 * East Meihan Expressway
 * Second Meishin Expressway
 * Ise Expressway
 * Ise Bayside Expressway
 * Kisei Expressway
 * Meihan National Highway
 * Ise Shima Skyline
 * Ise Futami Toba Road
 * Kumano Owase Road

National highways

 * Route 1
 * Route 23 (Ise-Yokkaichi-Nagoya-Gamagori-Toyohashi)
 * Route 25 (Meihan Highway)
 * Route 42
 * Route 163
 * Route 164 (Yokkaichi)
 * Route 165
 * Route 167 (Shima-Toba -Ise)
 * Route 258
 * Route 301
 * Route 311
 * Route 365
 * Route 421
 * Route 422
 * Route 425 (Owase-Totsukawa-Gobo)
 * Route 477

Ports

 * Yokkaichi Port - International and domestic container and goods hub port
 * Tsu Port - Hydrofoil ferry route to Centrair airport (Chubu International Airport)
 * Matsuzaka Port - Hydrofoil ferry route to Centrair
 * Toba Port - Ferry route to Ira Cape

Notable places

 * Ise Grand Shrine - Japan's holiest Shinto shrine.
 * Tsubaki Grand Shrine - Japan's oldest Shinto shrine.
 * Kumano Kodō - World Heritage Site. Ancient road in southern Mie once used by pilgrims.
 * Iga-Ueno - Birthplace of the ninja and home to the Iga Ninja Museum.
 * Ise-Shima National Park
 * Yoshino-Kumano National Park
 * Tage Kitabatakeshi Yakata - Tage Kitabatake clan fortified residence, one of the Continued Top 100 Japanese Castles in 2017.
 * Sakakibara Onsen - Famous onsen near Tsu, considered to be the 3rd best onsen in Japan.
 * Yunoyama Onsen - Famous onsen near Yokkaichi that sits atop Mount Gozaisho.
 * Nagashima Spa Land - One of the largest amusement parks in Japan, located in Kuwana.
 * Toba Aquarium
 * Mikimoto Pearl Island - Museum in Toba that is dedicated to Kōkichi Mikimoto, inventor of pearl cultivation.
 * The Wedded Rocks of Okitama Shrine in Futami (now part of the city of Ise)
 * Suzuka Circuit - Japan's most famous motor racetrack.
 * Saikū - Site of Heian Imperial residence, with modern museum and reconstructed Heian building.
 * A large Sonic the Hedgehog statue in the town of Iga can be found near Kanonji temple which has been the topic of discussion amongst gaming publications.

Notable citizens

 * Aoi, guitarist of The GazettE
 * Daikokuya Kōdayū, a Japanese castaway who spent eleven years in Russia
 * Daisuke Kishio, voice actor
 * Die, guitarist of Dir En Grey
 * Hakaru Hashimoto, medical scientist
 * Hiroshi Okuda, Chairman of the Toyota Motor Corporation, chairman of the Japan Business Federation
 * Hiroyuki Ito, a video game designer working for Square Enix
 * Jun Maeda, a Japanese writer and co-founder of the software company Key
 * Kana Nishino, singer
 * Katsuya Okada, former Foreign Minister, and DPJ Secretary General
 * Keiichi Yabu, relief pitcher for the San Francisco Giants
 * Ken Hirai, Japanese R&B and pop singer
 * Kenta Nishimoto, professional badminton player
 * Kota Sasaki, racing driver
 * Mashiho Takata, a member of Korean-Pop boy group Treasure
 * Matsuo Bashō, the most famous poet of the Edo period, renowned for his haiku
 * Mikimoto Kōkichi, founder of the cultured pearl    industry
 * Mitski Miyawaki, Japanese-American singer-songwriter
 * Mitsui Takatoshi, founder of the Mitsui Group
 * Miwa Asao, beach volleyball player
 * Mizuki Noguchi, the gold medalist in the women's marathon event in the 2004 Summer Olympics
 * Norinaga Motoori, a Japanese scholar of Kokugaku during the Edo period
 * Norinaga Motoori, scholar of Kokugaku during the Edo period
 * Ranpo Edogawa, famous mystery novelist
 * Yasujirō Ozu, famous filmmaker
 * Yukio Ozaki, a politician said to be the father of Japan's constitutional government

Famous products

 * Akafuku, a sweet made with mochi and sweet red bean paste
 * Spiny lobster, known as Ise ebi (伊勢えび), named after the old province
 * Matsusaka beef
 * Ito Ranch, a matsusaka beef farm in the region

Government and politics
The prefectural government was briefly moved to Yokkaichi Town in Mie District in 1872 (hence the name Mie), but the capital moved back to Anotsu, Anō District (present-day Tsu City) in 1873 and has remained there since. Ignoring small changes through cross-prefectural municipal mergers, neighbourhood transfers and coastline variations, Mie reached its present borders in 1876 when it absorbed Watarai Prefecture. After the modern reactivation of districts in 1878/79, Mie consisted of 21 districts (merged down to 15 in the 1890s). The first prefectural assembly was elected in March 1879 and convened in April. In the introduction of modern cities, towns and villages in 1889, Anotsu became district-independent as Tsu City and the districts were subdivided into 18 towns and 317 villages (see the List of mergers in Mie Prefecture for changes since then).

As in all prefectures except Okinawa, the governor of Mie is directly elected since 1947. The prefectural assembly has 51 members. Both prefectural elections in Mie are currently held as part of unified local elections. In the last round in 2019, governor Eikei Suzuki easily won a third term with broad support from LDP, Shinsei Mie (see below) and Kōmeitō, against only one, JCP-supported challenger; Suzuki was originally elected narrowly in 2011 as centre-right candidate against centre-left supported Naohisa Matsuda, former mayor of Tsu City. In the Mie assembly, the LDP is strongest party; but it is distributed across several parliamentary groups, and the strongest group is Shisei Mie (新政みえ; "Renewal Mie") around members of several local parties of former Democrats.

In the National Diet, Mie is represented by four directly elected members of the House of Representatives and two (one per class) in the House of Councillors. After the national elections of 2016, 2017 and 2019, Mie's directly elected delegation was evenly split between Liberal Democrats (HR district #1: Norihisa Tamura, #4: Noriyo Mitsuya, HC 2019–25 class: Yūmi Yoshikawa) and ex-Democrats (HR #2: Masaharu Nakagawa, #3: Katsuya Okada, HC 2016–22 class: Hirokazu Shiba) in both houses of the Diet.

Sister states

 * 🇧🇷 São Paulo, Brazil
 * 🇨🇳 Henan, China
 * 🇪🇸 Valencia, Spain

title: Mie Prefecture


text:
Shiga Prefecture

Shiga Prefecture (滋賀県) is a landlocked prefecture of Japan located in the Kansai region of Honshu. Shiga Prefecture has a population of 1,412,916 as of 1 October 2015 and has a geographic area of 4,017 sqkm. Shiga Prefecture borders Fukui Prefecture to the north, Gifu Prefecture to the northeast, Mie Prefecture to the southeast, and Kyoto Prefecture to the west.

Ōtsu is the capital and largest city of Shiga Prefecture, with other major cities including Kusatsu, Nagahama, and Higashiōmi. Shiga Prefecture encircles Lake Biwa, the largest freshwater lake in Japan, and 37% of the total land area is designated as Natural Parks, the highest of any prefecture. Shiga Prefecture's southern half is located adjacent to the former capital city of Kyoto and forms part of Greater Kyoto, the fourth-largest metropolitan area in Japan. Shiga Prefecture is home to Ōmi beef, the Eight Views of Ōmi, and Hikone Castle, one of four national treasure castles in Japan.

History
Shiga was known as Ōmi Province or Gōshū before the prefectural system was established. Omi was a neighbor of Nara and Kyoto, at the junction of western and eastern Japan. During the period 667 to 672, Emperor Tenji founded a palace in Otsu. In 742, Emperor Shōmu founded a palace in Shigaraki. In the early Heian period, Saichō was born in the north of Otsu and founded Enryaku-ji, the center of Tendai and a UNESCO World Heritage Site and monument of Ancient Kyoto now.

During the Heian period, the Sasaki clan ruled Omi, and afterward, the Rokkaku clan, Kyōgoku clan, and Azai clans ruled Omi. While during the Azuchi-Momoyama period, Oda Nobunaga subjugated Omi and built Azuchi Castle on the eastern shores of Lake Biwa in 1579. Tōdō Takatora, Gamō Ujisato, Oichi, Yodo-dono, Ohatsu, and Oeyo were Omi notables during this period.

In 1600, Ishida Mitsunari, born in the east of Nagahama and based in Sawayama Castle, made war against Tokugawa Ieyasu in Sekigahara, Gifu. After the battle, Ieyasu made Ii Naomasa a new lord of Sawayama. Naomasa established the Hikone Domain, later famous for Ii Naosuke. Ii Naosuke became the Tokugawa shogunate's Tairō and concluded commercial treaties with the Western powers and thus ended Japan's isolation from the world in the 19th century. Besides the Hikone Domain, many domains ruled Omi such as Zeze.

With the abolition of the han system, eight prefectures were formed in Omi. They were unified into Shiga Prefecture in September 1872. "Shiga Prefecture" was named after "Shiga District" because Otsu belonged to the district until 1898. From August 1876 to February 1881, southern Fukui Prefecture had been incorporated into Shiga Prefecture.

In 2015, Shiga Governor Taizō Mikazuki conducted a survey asking citizens whether they felt it necessary to change the name of the prefecture, partly to raise its profile as a destination for domestic tourism.

Geography

Shiga borders Fukui Prefecture in the north, Gifu Prefecture in the east, Mie Prefecture in the southeast, and Kyoto Prefecture in the west.

Lake Biwa, Japan's largest, is located at the center of this prefecture. It occupies one-sixth of its area. The Seta River flows from Lake Biwa to Osaka Bay through Kyoto. This is the only natural river that flows out from the lake. Most other natural rivers flow into the lake. There were many lagoons around Lake Biwa, but most of them were reclaimed in 1940s. One of the preserved lagoons is the wetland (水郷) in Omihachiman, and it was selected as the first Important Cultural Landscapes in 2006.

The lake divides the prefecture into four different areas: Kohoku (湖北, north of lake) centered Nagahama, Kosei (湖西, west of lake) centered Imazu, Kotō (湖東, east of lake) centered Hikone and Konan (湖南, south of lake) centered Otsu.

Plains stretch to the eastern shore of Lake Biwa. The prefecture is enclosed by mountain ranges with the Hira Mountains and Mount Hiei in the west, the Ibuki Mountains in the northeast, and the Suzuka Mountains in the southeast. Mount Ibuki is the highest mountain in Shiga. In Yogo, a small lake is famous for the legend of the heavenly robe of an angel (天女の羽衣), which is similar to a western Swan maiden.

Shiga's climate sharply varies between north and south. Southern Shiga is usually warm, but northern Shiga is typically cold with high snowfall and hosts many skiing grounds. In Nakanokawachi, the northernmost village of Shiga, snow reached a depth of 5.6 m in 1936.

As of 1 April 2014, 37% of the total land area of the prefecture was designated as Natural Parks (the highest total of any prefecture), namely the Biwako and Suzuka Quasi-National Parks; and Kotō, Kutsuki-Katsuragawa, and Mikami-Tanakami-Shigaraki Prefectural Natural Parks.

Cities

Thirteen cities are located in Shiga Prefecture:

Towns
These are the towns in each district:

Politics
The current governor of Shiga is Taizō Mikazuki, a former member of the House of Representatives from Shiga (DPJ, 3rd district), who was narrowly elected in July 2014 with center-left support against ex-METI-bureaucrat Takashi Koyari (supported by the center-right national-level ruling parties) to succeed governor Yukiko Kada. In June 2018, he was overwhelmingly reelected to a second term against only one, Communist challenger.

The prefectural assembly has 44 members from 16 electoral districts, and is still elected in unified local elections (last round: 2019). As of July 2019, the assembly was composed by caucus as follows: LDP 20 members, Team Shiga (CDP, DPP, former Kada supporters etc.) 14, JCP 4, Sazanami Club (of independents) 3, Kōmeitō 2, "independent"/non-attached 1.

In the National Diet, Shiga is represented by four directly elected members of the House of Representatives and two (one per ordinary election) of the House of Councillors. For the proportional representation segment of the lower house, the prefecture forms part of the Kinki block. After the national elections of 2016, 2017 and 2019, the directly elected delegation to the Diet from Shiga consists of (as of August 1, 2019):
 * in the House of Representatives
 * for the 1st district in the west: Toshitaka Ōoka, LDP, 3rd term,
 * for the 2nd district in the northeast: Ken'ichirō Ueno, LDP, 4th term,
 * for the 3rd district on the southern shores of Lake Biwa: Nobuhide Takemura, LDP, 3rd term,
 * for the 4th district in the southeast: Hiroo Kotera, LDP, 1st term,
 * in the House of Councillors (Shiga At-large district)
 * in the class of 2016 (term ends 2022): Takashi Koyari, LDP, 1st term,
 * in the class of 2019 (term ends 2025): Yukiko Kada, independent sitting with the Hekisuikai caucus, 1st term.

Economy

Cultivated areas occupy nearly one-sixth of the prefecture. Rice is the principal crop: over 90 percent of the farmlands are rice fields. Most farms are small, producing only a slight income. Most farmers depend on income from other sources. Eastern Shiga is famous for cattle breeding and southeastern Shiga is famous for green tea. On Lake Biwa, some people are engaged in fishery and freshwater pearl farming.

Since the Medieval Period, especially in Edo period, many Shiga people were active in commerce and were called Ōmi merchants (近江商人), sometimes Ōmi thieves (近江泥棒) by other envious merchants. For example, Nippon Life, Itochu, Marubeni, Takashimaya, Wacoal and Yanmar were founded by people from Shiga. In their home towns such as Omihachiman, Hino, Gokashō and Toyosato, their mansions were preserved as tourist attractions.

Beginning in the 1960s, Shiga developed industry, supporting major factories owned by companies such as IBM Japan, Canon, Yanmar Diesel, Mitsubishi, and Toray. According to Cabinet Office's statistics in 2014, the Manufacturing sector accounted for 35.4% of Gross Shiga Product, the highest proportion in Japan. Traditional industries include textiles, Shigaraki ware, Butsudan in Hikone and Nagahama, medicines in Koka, and fan ribs in Adogawa.

Demographics

The population is concentrated along the southern shore of Lake Biwa in Otsu city (adjacent to Kyoto) and along the lake's eastern shore in cities such as Kusatsu and Moriyama, which are within commuting distance to Kyoto. The lake's western and northern shores are more rural and resort-oriented with white sand beaches. In recent years, many Brazilians settled in Shiga to work in nearby factories. 25,040 foreigners live in Shiga and 30% of foreigners were Brazilians as of December 2016.

Culture

Biwa Town (now a part of Nagahama) is a home of The Tonda Traditional Bunraku Puppet Troupe. Founded in the 1830s, the group is one of the most active traditional Bunraku puppet theaters in Japan outside the National Theater in Osaka. Toyosato and Higashiomi are known to a mecca of Goshu ondo.

Museums include the Sagawa Art Museum in Moriyama, the Lake Biwa Museum in Kusatsu and the Miho Museum in Kōka. In Kōka, a ninja house is preserved as a visitor center.

Cuisine
Since ancient times, Shigans have eaten fish from Lake Biwa. The most famous lake-food is fermented sushi of crucian carp (鮒寿司). It retains the ancient style of sushi and has a pungent odor. Shiga is also famous for high quality wagyū, Ōmi beef. The Hikone Domain presented beef as medicinal food to shōguns. In addition, tsukemono of root crops, mallard nabe or mallard sukiyaki (鴨鍋 or 鴨すき) in northern Shiga, red colored konjac (赤こんにゃく) in Omihachiman, sōmen with grilled mackerel (焼鯖素麺) in Nagahama, and lightly seasoned champon in Hikone are examples of specific cuisine in Shiga.

Mass media
Biwako Broadcasting broadcasts local TV programs. NHK has a broadcasting station in Otsu. Shiga is the only prefecture which has no regional newspapers. Kyoto Shimbun is a de facto regional newspaper of Shiga.

Education
Ten universities, two junior colleges, and a learning center of The Open University of Japan operate in Shiga.
 * Shiga University (Hikone and Ōtsu)
 * Shiga University of Medical Science (Otsu)
 * University of Shiga Prefecture (Hikone)
 * Seian University of Art and Design (Otsu)
 * Seisen University (Hikone)
 * Nagahama Institute of Bio-Science and Technology (Nagahama)
 * Biwako-Gakuin University (Higashiomi)
 * Biwako Seikei Sport College (Otsu)
 * Ritsumeikan University (Kyoto and Kusatsu)
 * Ryukoku University (Kyoto and Otsu)
 * Shiga Junior College (Otsu)
 * Shiga Bunkyo Junior College (Nagahama)

Sports
The following sports teams are based in Shiga.

 * Basketball: Shiga LakeStars
 * Volleyball: Toray Arrows (women's volleyball team) (Otsu)
 * Football (soccer): MIO Biwako Kusatsu (Kusatsu), Sagawa Shiga F.C. (Moriyama).
 * Tennis: SHRIGGA AKA UVEAL

Tourism

Shiga has many tourism resources, but Shiga is overshadowed by its much more famous neighbor Kyoto. Over four million foreign tourists visited Japan in 2000, but only sixty-five thousand visited Shiga.

The main gateways to Shiga are the Maibara Station in northern Shiga and the city of Ōtsu in the south. The Maibara Station is about 2 hours and 20 minutes away from the Tokyo Station by the Tokaido Shinkansen. It is easy to go to Ōtsu from Kyoto and Osaka by high-speed trains.

Shiga's most prominent feature is Lake Biwa. The northern shore is especially scenic, such as the cherry blossoms of Kaizu Osaki in spring and the sacred island Chikubu-shima. The western shore has white sand beaches, popular among Kyotoites during the summer. The scenery of the southern shore, particularly around Otsu, was selected as Ōmi Hakkei or Eight Views of Ōmi, popularized by Hiroshige's ukiyo-e. Most of the original eight views are now almost gone or changed from centuries ago. One remaining view is the Ukimidō "floating temple" building at Mangetsu-ji temple in Katata, northern Ōtsu. It was reconstructed with concrete in 1937, but a small temple still stands on the lake near the shore, accessible by a short bridge. Another scene features Ishiyama-dera temple in southern Otsu, which is also renowned for having a room where Murasaki Shikibu thought up the plan for some chapters of Tale of Genji.

The mountains around the lake offer extensive views. Mount Hira is a picnic spot. Mountain roads like the Oku-Biwako Parkway road up north and the Hiei-zan Driveway and Oku-Hiei Driveway overlooking the southwestern shore. In Ōtsu, the Ōtsu Prince Hotel's Top of Otsu restaurant provides views of the lake and city. The Michigan paddlewheel boat offers lake cruises.

Besides the natural environment, historical buildings and festivals persons rank among those of national importance. Shiga has 807 National Treasures and Important Cultural Properties, that ranks the fourth large number in Japan. Shiga's most famous historical building is Hikone Castle, one of four national treasure castles in the country. The castle tower is well preserved and has many cherry trees. The neighboring city of Nagahama has tourism in addition to its hikiyama festival. Nearby shrines include Hiyoshi Taisha in Otsu and Taga-taisha in Taga, which respectively head the seventh and twentieth largest shrine networks in Japan, at about 4,000 shrines and 260 shrines, respectively.

Festivals include the hikiyama festival (floats parade festival), held in ten areas such as Nagahama, Otsu, Maibara, Hino and Minakuchi. The Nagahama hikiyama festival held each April is one of the three major hikiyama festivals in Japan and was designated an Important Intangible Cultural Property in 1979. During this festival ornate floats are mounted with miniature stages on which boys (playing both male and female roles) act in kabuki plays. Higashiomi (formerly Yōkaichi) city holds a Giant Kite Festival every May along the riverbank. Ordinary people are invited to pull the rope that sends the kites aloft.

Railways

 * West Japan Railway Company
 * Tōkaidō Main Line (Biwako Line), Hokuriku Main Line, Kusatsu Line and Kosei Line
 * Central Japan Railway Company
 * Tōkaidō Shinkansen (Maibara Station) and Tōkaidō Main Line
 * Keihan Electric Railway
 * Keishin Line and Ishiyama Sakamoto Line
 * Ohmi Railway
 * Main Line, Yōkaichi Line and Taga Line
 * Shigaraki Kōgen Railway
 * Sakamoto Cable

Roads
Meishin Expressway, Shin-Meishin Expressway and Hokuriku Expressway pass through Shiga. National highway Route 1, 8, 21, 8, 161, 303, 306, 307, 365, 367, 421, 422 and 477 connect with neighboring prefectures. Two bridges span southern part of Lake Biwa.

Boats
With development of land transportation in the 20th century, waterborne transportation in Lake Biwa was disused except for steamer services to islands on the lake and pleasure boats.

Notable people from Shiga Prefecture

 * Kakuzo Kawamoto, business executive and politician from Takashima District.
 * Gentaro Kawase, president of Nippon Life Insurance from Ōmihachiman
 * Takanori Nishikawa, a singer and actor from Hikone and Yasu. He is also active as the first Cultural Ambassador for Shiga.
 * Hizaki, a musician and songwriter, known for work as guitarist of Versailles.
 * Sōsuke Uno, the 75th prime minister from Moriyama. He was one of the shortest-serving prime ministers in Japan, holding office for only three months (June–August 1989).
 * Kizo Yasui, business executive from Hikone, Shiga. Vice-president of Mitsui Bank, president of Mitsui Petroleum and Chemical Industries (now Mitsui Chemicals), chairman of Toray Industries, vice-chairman of Nihon Keidanren (Japan Business Federation), general manager of Tokyo Metropolis of Ise Shrine Revered Board.

Sister states
Shiga has cooperative agreements with three states.
 * 🇧🇷 Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil
 * 🇺🇸 Michigan, USA (1968)
 * Hunan, China

title: Shiga Prefecture


text:
M51 Skysweeper

The M51 Skysweeper (Gun, M51, Antiaircraft or Gun automatic, 75-mm T83E6, and E7, recoil mechanism, and loader rammer) was an anti-aircraft gun deployed in the early 1950s by both the U.S. Army and U.S. Air Force. It was the first such gun to combine a gun laying radar, analog computer (director) and an autoloader on a single carriage.

The Skysweeper was introduced just as surface-to-air missiles were being deployed in the long-range role, replacing earlier anti-aircraft artillery systems. These missiles were very large and slow to react, which left short-range engagements to guns. The Army's existing guns were a motley collection of World War II-era systems that were barely effective then and were considered largely useless against jet-powered aircraft. Missiles replaced all of the larger weapons, while Skysweeper replaced all the smaller ones.

The Skysweeper system was used for a relatively short period of time, from the mid to late 1950s in the US, and into the 1960s and 1970s in some overseas locations. By that time newer missile systems were closing the range gap, and the Army was busy developing new weapons like the MIM-46 Mauler for this role.

Development
Anti-aircraft guns naturally fall into several categories, each for a different altitude and speed requirement. High-altitude targets require very large guns to get the needed power into the shell to reach those altitudes, but at the same time have the advantage of not needing to move very fast because at that range the change in angle of the target was small—consider the seemingly slow motion of an airliner at cruise altitude. At very low altitudes there were only seconds in which to react when spotting an aircraft over local terrain, so a hand-swung weapon was the only possibility, no matter how inaccurate. The short ranges meant that accuracy was not needed, nor was a large gun needed to cover the range.

This left an intermediate altitude at which a small gun could not be used because the range to the aircraft was too far, and a larger gun could not be used because the targets were moving too fast. During World War II this niche had been covered by the Bofors 40 mm and similar weapons, but against modern jet-powered aircraft these were effectively useless because they simply didn't have the speed and weight of fire to be effective against targets that would be within range for only seconds. This led to the need for a new gun to address this intermediate-range role, and the Army defined this to be a weapon able to defeat aircraft flying at 1,000 mph (1,600 km/h) at altitudes up to 20,000 feet (6 km).

The Sperry Gyroscope Company developed the radar and computer, and development of what would become the Skysweeper started in 1948. A new 75 mm gun, known as the T83E1 or M35, was developed that had excellent muzzle velocity, along with two ten-round revolver-type magazines and an auto-loader that allowed it to reach 45 rounds/minute—about one third of what the much lighter Bofors had managed. This was mounted on a large square platform with powered traverse, which also mounted the box-shaped computer and manual gunsights on the right side, and the T-38 radar unit on the left. The T-38 radar had a range of about 30 km and could track aircraft traveling at up to 700 mph (1100 km/h).

The Army publicly announced the Skysweeper system in the Spring of 1953.

Deployment
Skysweeper deployment began in the early 1950s. Skysweeper was also part of the Army Anti-Aircraft Command (ARAACOM) in the U.S near targets that would have to be attacked by low-altitude aircraft. During the 1950s the Army formed the Army Anti-Aircraft Command (ARAACOM) to operate batteries of anti-aircraft guns and missiles. Most ARAACOM deployments were around cities and used the 90 mm and 120 mm guns, as well as the Nike Ajax missile defense.

CONUS had 896 120mm and 75mm Sky Sweepers in service in 1953. Most were along the NE Corridor from Boston to District of Columbia and in Washington State.

In 1957, ARAACOM was renamed to US Army Air Defense Command (USARADCOM, ARADCOM in 1961) and, ARAACOM started to dramatically replace gun sites with fewer missile sites (ARADCOM ended in 1975).

By the end of 1957 Skysweeper battalions remained at Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, to protect the Soo Locks (one battalion), Savannah River Site (two), and one 90mm and two Skysweeper battalions at Thule Air Base, Greenland (all were removed by 1959). The last overseas Skysweeper were deactivated in the mid-1970s, being wholly replaced by other more advanced anti-air missile systems.

Survivors

 * Two Skysweepers are on display at the Air Defense Artillery Museum at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, one in the ADA Park and one at the temporary museum facility.
 * A Skysweeper is part of the outdoor exhibit at the Rock Island Arsenal Museum in Illinois
 * A pair of Skysweepers in varying states of preservation are on display at the Fort Lewis Museum outdoor exhibit at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington.
 * A pair of Skysweepers are on display outside the gate of Camp Rilea just south of Warrenton, Oregon.
 * There is a Skysweeper on display outside of the VFW in Elberton, GA.
 * One Skysweeper is on display at the International Artillery Museum, St. Jo, Texas.
 * One Skysweeper is on display at the American Military Museum, South El Monte, California.
 * One Skysweeper is on display at the JGSDF Shimoshidu base, Chiba. Japan.

title: M51 Skysweeper


text:
Talk:Kangaroo Jack

Various comments < 2005
Not exactly sure I'm doing this right, but I think Zoe's comment about how this movie was received and ultimately rejected by parents should be included in the Critical Response section. That was a big part of the film's reception at the time and there are still plenty of references online to this event. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.83.75.237 (talk) 00:58, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

The local library had a copy so I watched this idiotic movie, but, I am curious about the beautiful waterfalls shown for a few minutes.

Are they in Australia? If so where?

Movie makers patch stuff from all around the world, so they might be in Africa.

Todd river was mentioned, and photos at an Aussie site of Todd river look similar to what I saw in the movie. Jimmyreno (talk) 02:56, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

 * Bit late to the party but I'm pretty sure the water falls are outside Katherine in the northern Territory. After finishing filming in Alice a small crew headed out there to get some more shots. 80.189.125.130 (talk) 17:37, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

Was this movie really high-grossing? It seriously looked like quite possibly the shittiest movie I could ever have guessed existed... why on earth did people pay money for something that insults the intelligence of Australians, African-Americans, Caucasians, rappers, kangaroos, the desert, etc... (this is the movie I'm thinking of, right?  With the kangaroo that steals money from some fat black guy and the guy from Sliders?)  I guess I kind of assumed it bombed -- I know I'm kinda out of touch on a lot of things, but seriously...  Even my mom agreed it looked terrible, and she likes anything with animals. Tokerboy

It was the number one movie of the week for, fortunately, only one week. The problem was the false advertising which made a lot of parents think it was a family movie. When it turned out not to be, word of mouth killed it quickly. -- Zoe
 * That just reinforces the point of the my eternal question: Imagine how many people actually approved that movie? How many people read the script and/or saw the final product and said "yes, this is a good movie.  This is not a sign of the Apocalypse".  I bet a hundred people gave this the go-ahead. Tokerboy 06:04 Feb 6, 2003 (UTC)
 * Well, Jerry Bruckheimer executive produced it, and after Con Air and the two CSI shows, he can do no wrong in Hollywood. Till Kangaroo Jack.  -- Zoe

Added comedy film stub. I hold someone can expand this. It's a funny movie of children and adults. Psy Guy 16:44, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

"I put the money in the jacket, and I put the jacket on the kangaroo, and now he's hoping away!" ~ Anthony Anderson, Kangaroo Jack

Detailed Synopsis
I revised the synopsis a bit because it contained spelling errors, needless comments (such as adding that Charlie "sexually harassed" Jesse, sure he did but he didn't know, and must we really be THAT pc by putting that on the plot description?) and was vandalized. I had already corrected the spelling errors before, but some goof put them all back to their incorrect form. I have an automatic spell checker on my browser, so yes I'm sure the old was incorrect and mine were correct. Just wanted to let the editor and anyone else know what was up with the big change.-- PokeFan2006

 * I've removed it. It's quite difficult to follow and doesn't really add anything.  The existing "Plot" section describes the plot adequately. --Tony Sidaway 19:36, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

The existing Plot summary is far longer and more detailed than Wikipedia standards, and probably should be trimmed down. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.220.164.125 (talk) 20:08, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Kangaroo jack.jpg
Image:Kangaroo jack.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in Wikipedia articles constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images uploaded after 4 May, 2006, and lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.BetacommandBot 16:20, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Correction.
Just watched the film,it was $50,000 not $500,000,so I corrected the article.94.196.50.21 (talk) 16:01, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Magolor and Friends
Magolor is found to find a kangaroo gangster known as “Jack” in a kangaroo exhibit in the Lake Superior Zoo. Jack tries to shoot the other kangaroos, but fails. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.248.72.49 (talk) 17:17, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

title: Talk:Kangaroo Jack


text:
Kerrison Predictor

The Kerrison Predictor was one of the first fully automated anti-aircraft fire-control systems. It was used to automate the aiming of the British Army's Bofors 40 mm guns and provide accurate lead calculations through simple inputs on three main handwheels.

The predictor could aim a gun at an aircraft based on simple inputs like the observed speed and the angle to the target. Such devices had been used on ships for gunnery control for some time, and versions such as the Vickers Predictor were available for larger anti-aircraft guns intended to be used against high-altitude bombers. Kerrison's analog computer was the first to be fast enough to be used in the demanding high-speed low-altitude role, which involved very short engagement times and high angular rates.

The design was also adopted for use in the United States, where it was produced by Singer Corporation as the M5 Antiaircraft Director, later updated as the M5A1 and M5A2. The M6 was mechanically identical, differing only in running on UK-style 50 Hz power.

History
By the late 1930s, both Vickers and Sperry had developed predictors for use against high-altitude bombers. However, low-flying aircraft presented a very different problem, with very short engagement times and high angular rates of motion, but at the same time less need for ballistic accuracy. Machine guns had been the preferred weapon against these targets, aimed by eye and swung by hand, but these no longer had the performance needed to deal with the larger and faster aircraft of the 1930s.

The British Army's new Bofors 40 mm guns were intended as their standard low-altitude anti-aircraft weapons. However, existing gunnery control systems were inadequate for the purpose; the range was too far to "guess" the lead, but at the same time close enough that the angle could change faster than the gunners could turn the traversal handles. Trying to operate a calculating gunsight at the same time was an added burden on the gunner. Making matters worse was that these ranges were exactly where the Luftwaffe's dive bombers, which were quickly proving to be a decisive weapon in the Blitzkrieg, were attacking from.

The problem was taken up by Major A.V. Kerrison of the British Army, who had been working as the Army liaison at the Admiralty Research Laboratory, Teddington, through 1930s. Kerrison had worked on several of the Royal Navy's gunnery computers and took up the problem in the late 1930s. After the war, Kerrison went on to become Director of Aeronautical and Engineering Research at the British Admiralty.

His solution was a calculator that dispensed with many of the corrections and timing issues seen in devices like the Vickers Predictor which were intended for high-altitude fire. Instead, it made a relatively simple calculation of the impact point based on relative motion as provided by the operator. Key to the concept was the use of two ball-and-disk integrators, used in this case to maintain a constant rate of motion. On top of the motorized disk were two metal balls, set one on top of the other with the bottom one in contact with the disk and the second in contact with mechanisms that drove the Predictor's laying handwheels.

The two balls were clutched so they could be separated or forced together. For the initial setup, the operator would declutch the balls and use the handwheels to bring the Predictor's telescope onto the target. This also moved the two balls across the surface of the disk, although they were not in contact with it. Once they had begun tracking it, the clutch would be moved to bring the two balls into contact with the disk, at which point the rotation of the disk would cause the balls to rotate and thus automatically move the telescope to stay aligned with the target.

As the original inputs from the handwheels were unlikely to be perfectly accurate, the system would normally begin to "drift" away from the target. The operators would then move the handwheel to bring the target back into the center, which also slid the balls over the disk to a new location, changing their rotation speed, and thereby adjusting the rate of motion to properly track the target again. The position of the balls over the disk directly represents the rate of angular motion of the target. A third setting in the clutch reset the system to begin tracking a different target.

The two rates, in azimuth and altitude, were used to calculate the angular rate of the target, and from that, the vector along which the target was moving relative to the gun. This does not provide a complete solution; the shell from the gun takes a certain time to fly to the target, during which time it moves. This requires the gun to "lead" the target to account for the motion during this time. Since the range to the target is independent of its motion, this value had to be input separately, initially by a separate crewman simply estimating the range or using some form of optical rangefinder, although small Gun Laying radars for this task became common during World War II.

The "output" of the device drove hydraulic servo-motors attached to the traversal and elevation gears of the otherwise unmodified Bofors gun, allowing it to follow the predictor's indications automatically without manual intervention. The gunners simply kept the gun loaded, while the three aimers simply had to point the Predictor, mounted on a large tripod, at the target. The Kerrison predictor did not calculate fuse settings, as the shells fired by the 40 mm Bofors gun, with which it was designed to work, were contact-fused.

The Predictor proved to be able to hit practically anything that flew in a straight line, and it was particularly effective against dive bombers. It was also very complex, including over 1,000 precision parts and weighing over 500 lb, even though much of it was made of aluminium to reduce weight. With the demands of the RAF for almost all light metals and machinists, the Predictor was far too difficult for the Army to produce in any quantity.

While the Predictor proved to be an excellent addition to the Bofors, it was not without its faults. The main problem was that the system required a fairly large electrical generator in order to drive the gun, increasing the logistics load in supplying the generators with fuel. Setting the system up was also a fairly complex task, and not something that could be done "on the fly". In the end, they were used almost entirely for static emplacements, field units continuing to rely on their original iron sights or the simple Stiffkey-Stick sights that were introduced in late 1943.

The No.7 anti-aircraft composite predictor, also designed by Kerrison was similar in some ways. It was originally developed for the 6-pounder naval gun, for close-in defence and also against targets at intermediate altitudes of 6000 to 14000 ft. It was later adapted for use with the 40 mm Bofors.

US service
Although it was more accurate than the Kerrison predictor, Sperry was unable to keep up with production of its more expensive and complex M-7 director. In September 1940, General George C. Marshall asked the British for the loan of four Bofors 40 mm guns with Kerrison Predictors for testing.

During testing the Kerrison Predictor provided accurate fire control to a range in excess of 1500 m, and the Bofors gun was reliable. In the fall of 1940, the Ordnance Department standardized the Kerrison Predictor for use with their 37 mm gun. By February 1941, the U.S. Navy had adopted the Bofors for use on their ships. To ease production problems, the Army reluctantly standardized on the 40 mm in February 1941; the U.S. was building the Bofors for the British under the Lend-Lease Program.

The Predictor's plans were passed to Sperry Corporation, who were just commencing production of their own complex high-altitude system, the M7 Computing Sight, and had no excess capacity to produce the new design as well. Instead, they completed changes needed to adapt the Predictor to U.S. production and sent the plans back to the Army for production elsewhere. In December 1940 the Singer Corporation was contracted to produce 1,500 predictors per month to equip the Army's existing 37 mm guns while production of the 40 mm Bofors was ramped up. Two models were built initially, the M5 running on US-standard 115 V 60 Hz power, and the M6 for British use, running on 50 V 50 Hz power. The original M5 was designed to use an external torque amplifier, which added to the complexity. This was addressed in the M5A1, which used a more powerful ball-and-disk system that eliminated the need for an external amplifier.

To produce the devices rapidly enough, Singer implemented massive changes in the company, including building new factories and the switching of a foundry from steel to aluminium. Production did not begin until January 1943, but the entire order was filled by the middle of 1944. For a brief time, some of the U.S. Army's Bofors guns were equipped with the Sperry M7, but these were replaced in the field as soon as M5s became available.

With aircraft speeds increasing dramatically during the war, even the speed of the Kerrison Predictor proved lacking by the end. Nevertheless, the Predictor demonstrated that effective gunnery required some sort of reasonably powerful computing support, and in 1944 Bell Labs started delivery of a new system based around an electronic analog computer. The timing proved excellent; late that summer, the Germans started attacking London with the V-1 flying bomb, which flew at high speeds at low altitudes. After a month of limited success against them, every available anti-aircraft gun was moved to the strip of land on the approach to London, and the new sights proved to be more than capable against them. Daytime attacks were soon abandoned.

Long after the war, U.S. M5s started appearing in surplus shops in the late 1950s. John Whitney purchased one (and later a Sperry M7) and connected the electrical outputs to servos controlling the positioning of small lit targets and light bulbs. He then modified the "mathematics" of the system to move the targets in various mathematically controlled ways, a technique he referred to as incremental drift. As the power of the systems grew, they eventually evolved into motion control photography, a widely used technique in special effects filming.

title: Kerrison Predictor


text:
OKW (disambiguation)

OKW is the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, the high command of Nazi Germany's armed forces.

OKW may also refer to:

 * "Old King William's", a label given to former school pupils, staff and governors of King William's College, Isle of Man
 * Old Key West, a Disney resort in Florida, US
 * One Kill Wonder, a 2003 album by the death/thrash-metal group The Haunted

title: OKW (disambiguation)


text:
Nagano Prefecture

Nagano Prefecture (長野県) is a landlocked prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region of Honshū. Nagano Prefecture has a population of 2,007,682 and has a geographic area of 13561.56 km2. Nagano Prefecture borders Niigata Prefecture to the north, Gunma Prefecture to the northeast, Saitama Prefecture to the east, Yamanashi Prefecture to the southeast, Shizuoka Prefecture and Aichi Prefecture to the south, and Gifu Prefecture and Toyama Prefecture to the west.

Nagano is the capital and largest city of Nagano Prefecture, with other major cities including Matsumoto, Ueda, and Iida. Nagano Prefecture has impressive highland areas of the Japanese Alps, including most of the Hida Mountains, Kiso Mountains, and Akaishi Mountains which extend into the neighbouring prefectures. The area's mountain ranges, natural scenery, and history has gained Nagano Prefecture international recognition as a winter sports tourist destination, and hosted the 1998 Winter Olympics. It is served by a new Shinkansen line to Tokyo.

Geography
Nagano is an inland prefecture and it borders more prefectures than any other in Japan, bordering Gunma Prefecture, Saitama Prefecture, Yamanashi Prefecture, and Shizuoka Prefecture to the east, Niigata Prefecture to the north, Toyama Prefecture and Gifu Prefecture to the west, and Aichi Prefecture to the south. Nagano contains the point furthest from the sea in the whole of Japan—this point lies within the city of Saku. The province's mountains have made it relatively isolated, and many visitors come to Nagano for its mountain resorts and hot springs. Nine of the twelve highest mountains in Japan can be found in Nagano and one of its lakes, Lake Kizaki, is a beach resort popular for its water attractions and games. The climate is predominantly alpine with warm summers, cold snowy winters and less intense humidity than the lower lying coastal areas.

, 21% of the total land area of the prefecture was designated as Natural Parks; namely the Chichibu Tama Kai, Chūbu-Sangaku, Jōshin'etsu-kōgen, and Minami Alps National Parks; Myōgi-Arafune-Saku Kōgen, Tenryū-Okumikawa, and Yatsugatake-Chūshin Kōgen Quasi-National Parks; and Chūō Alps, Enrei Ōjō, Hijiriyama Kōgen, Mibugawa Suikei, Ontake, and Tenryū Koshibu Suikei Prefectural Natural Parks.

Cities
Nineteen cities are located in Nagano Prefecture:

 * Azumino
 * Chikuma
 * Chino
 * Iida
 * Iiyama
 * Ina
 * Komagane
 * Komoro
 * Matsumoto
 * Nagano (capital)
 * Nakano
 * Okaya
 * Ōmachi
 * Saku
 * Shiojiri
 * Suwa
 * Suzaka
 * Tōmi
 * Ueda

Towns and villages
These are the towns and villages in each district:

 * Chiisagata District
 * Aoki
 * Nagawa
 * Hanishina District
 * Sakaki
 * Higashichikuma District
 * Asahi
 * Chikuhoku
 * Ikusaka
 * Omi
 * Yamagata
 * Kamiina District
 * Iijima
 * Minamiminowa
 * Minowa
 * Miyada
 * Nakagawa
 * Tatsuno
 * Kamiminochi District
 * Iizuna
 * Ogawa
 * Shinano
 * Kamitakai District
 * Obuse
 * Takayama
 * Kiso District
 * Agematsu
 * Kiso (village)
 * Kiso (town)
 * Nagiso
 * Ōkuwa
 * Ōtaki
 * Kitaazumi District
 * Hakuba
 * Ikeda
 * Matsukawa
 * Otari
 * Kitasaku District
 * Karuizawa
 * Miyota
 * Tateshina
 * Minamisaku District
 * Kawakami
 * Kitaaiki
 * Koumi
 * Minamiaiki
 * Minamimaki
 * Sakuho
 * Shimoina District
 * Achi
 * Anan
 * Hiraya
 * Matsukawa
 * Neba
 * Ōshika
 * Shimojō
 * Takagi
 * Takamori
 * Tenryū
 * Toyooka
 * Urugi
 * Yasuoka
 * Shimominochi District
 * Sakae
 * Shimotakai District
 * Kijimadaira
 * Nozawaonsen
 * Yamanouchi
 * Suwa District
 * Fujimi
 * Hara
 * Shimosuwa

Demographics

The life expectancy in Nagano prefecture is the longest nationwide with the average life expectancy of 87.18 years for women and 80.88 years for men.

Railway

 * East Japan Railway Company
 * Hokuriku Shinkansen
 * Shin'etsu Main Line
 * Chūō Main Line (east line)
 * Shinonoi Line
 * Ōito Line (from Matsumoto to Minami-Otari)
 * Koumi Line
 * Central Japan Railway Company
 * Chūō Main Line (west line)
 * Iida Line
 * West Japan Railway Company
 * Ōito Line (from Minami-Otari to Itoigawa)
 * Shinano Railway
 * Shinano Railway Line
 * Nagano Electric Railway
 * Nagano Line
 * Matsumoto Electric Railway
 * Kamikōchi Line
 * Ueda Dentetsu
 * Bessho Line

Expressways

 * Chuo Expressway
 * Nagano Expressway
 * Joshinetsu Expressway
 * Sanen-nanshin Expressway
 * Chubu-jukan Expressway
 * Chubu-odan Expressway

National highways

 * Route 18
 * Route 19 (Nagano-Matsumoto-Shioriri-Nagiso-Nakatsugawa-Tajimi-Nagoya)
 * Route 20 (Matsumoto-Suwa-Kofu-Otsuki-Hachioji-Nihonbashi of Tokyo)
 * Route 117
 * Route 141
 * Route 142
 * Route 143 (Matsumoto-Azumino-Ueda)
 * Route 144
 * Route 147 (Matsumoto-Omachi)
 * Route 148 (Omachi-Itoigawa)
 * Route 151 (Iida-Shinshiro-Toyohashi)
 * Route 152
 * Route 153 (Nagoya-Toyota-Iida-Shioriri)
 * Route 158 (Fukui-Gujo-Takayama-Matsumoto)
 * Route 254
 * Route 256 (Gifu-Gujo-Gero-Nakatsugawa-Nagiso-Iida)
 * Route 403
 * Route 406 (Omachi-Hakuba-Nagano-Susaka-Tsumagoi-Takasaki)
 * Route 418 (Ono-Seki-Ena-Iida)

Airports

 * Matsumoto Airport

Public

 * Shinshu University (National)
 * Nagano College of Nursing (Prefectural)
 * The University of Nagano (Prefectural)
 * Nagano University [Municipal (Ueda City)]
 * Suwa Tokyo University of Science [Municipal (Chino City)]

Private

 * Matsumoto University (Private)
 * Matsumoto Dental University (Private)
 * Saku University (Private)
 * Seisen Jogakuin College (Private)

Economy
Nagano Prefecture has a large and diversified economy, with a strong focus on electronics, information technology, precision machinery, agriculture and food products, and tourism, with a total GDP of about ¥8.5trillion (2017).

Several large Japanese groups have production facilities in Nagano Prefecture, such as Citizen Watch (Citizen Group), MinebeaMitsumi, Seiko Epson and Vaio.

Tourism

 * Kamikōchi
 * Lake Kizaki
 * Lake Suwa
 * Mount Kirigamine
 * Suwa-taisha, one of the oldest shrines in Japan
 * Matsumoto Castle, one of Japan's national treasures
 * One of the world's highest geysers (about 40 to 50 meters) in Suwa
 * Zenkō-ji temple in Nagano city
 * Five Mountains of Northern Shinshu

Sports
There are two local J.League clubs: AC Nagano Parceiro and Matsumoto Yamaga FC.

Prefectural symbols

 * Siberian Silver Birch
 * Gentian
 * Ptarmigan
 * Japanese serow
 * Shinano no Kuni (prefecture song)

Sister regions

 * 🇹🇼 Changhua County, Taiwan (2008)
 * 🇨🇳 Hebei, China
 * 🇺🇸 Colorado, United States

Personalities

 * Nagano's former governor, Yasuo Tanaka, is an independent who has made a reputation internationally for attacking Japan's status quo. Among other issues, he has refused national government money for construction projects that he deems unnecessary, such as dams, and has overhauled (locally) the press club system that is blamed for limiting government access to journalists who give favorable coverage. Tanaka was voted out from office on August 6, 2006 and was replaced by Jin Murai.
 * Tatsumi Yoda (aka Tom Yoda), former chairman of Avex, is from Chikuma-shi.
 * Glim Spanky, the members of the rock band are from Nagano Prefecture
 * Yuto Adachi, of Korean boy group Pentagon is from Nagano Prefecture
 * Yasuyuki Kazama, a professional drift driver, is from Shimosuwa in Nagano Prefecture.
 * Keiichi Tsuchiya, a professional racing driver, is from Tōmi in Nagano Prefecture.
 * Bumpei Usui, a professional artist, came from Tōmi in Horikin Village, Minami Azumino County, Nagano Prefecture.
 * Jun'ya Ota (aka ZUN), video game developer best known for the Touhou Project series is from Nagano Prefecture.
 * Takashi Yamazaki, a filmmaker, is from Matsumoto in Nagano Prefecture.
 * Tadamichi Kuribayashi, a general in the Imperial Japanese Army who commanded troops during the Battle of Iwo Jima in the Second World War was born in Matsushiro a town in the Hanishina District.

title: Nagano Prefecture