Yokkaichi, Mie
Encyclopedia
is a city
Cities of Japan
||A is a local administrative unit in Japan. Cities are ranked on the same level as and , with the difference that they are not a component of...

 located in Mie
Mie Prefecture
is a prefecture of Japan which is part of the Kansai regions on Honshū island. The capital is the city of Tsu.- History :Until the Meiji Restoration, Mie prefecture was known as Ise Province and Iga Province....

, Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

.

As of October 1, 2010, the city has an estimated population
Population
A population is all the organisms that both belong to the same group or species and live in the same geographical area. The area that is used to define a sexual population is such that inter-breeding is possible between any pair within the area and more probable than cross-breeding with individuals...

 of 314,393. The total area is 205.53 km².

The closest major city is Nagoya in Aichi Prefecture
Aichi Prefecture
is a prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region. The region of Aichi is also known as the Tōkai region. The capital is Nagoya. It is the focus of the Chūkyō Metropolitan Area.- History :...

.

It is a manufacturing center that produces banko ware (a kind of porcelain
Porcelain
Porcelain is a ceramic material made by heating raw materials, generally including clay in the form of kaolin, in a kiln to temperatures between and...

), automobiles, cotton textiles, chemicals, tea
Tea
Tea is an aromatic beverage prepared by adding cured leaves of the Camellia sinensis plant to hot water. The term also refers to the plant itself. After water, tea is the most widely consumed beverage in the world...

, cement
Cement
In the most general sense of the word, a cement is a binder, a substance that sets and hardens independently, and can bind other materials together. The word "cement" traces to the Romans, who used the term opus caementicium to describe masonry resembling modern concrete that was made from crushed...

, and computer parts such as flash memory
Flash memory
Flash memory is a non-volatile computer storage chip that can be electrically erased and reprogrammed. It was developed from EEPROM and must be erased in fairly large blocks before these can be rewritten with new data...

 by Toshiba
Toshiba
is a multinational electronics and electrical equipment corporation headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. It is a diversified manufacturer and marketer of electrical products, spanning information & communications equipment and systems, Internet-based solutions and services, electronic components and...

 subsidiary Yokkaichi Toshiba Electronics.

History

In Azuchi-Momoyama period
Azuchi-Momoyama period
The came at the end of the Warring States Period in Japan, when the political unification that preceded the establishment of the Tokugawa shogunate took place. It spans the years from approximately 1573 to 1603, during which time Oda Nobunaga and his successor, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, imposed order...

, the port was developed and a regular market was open on 4, 14, 24 in each month. Thus, the city is named Yokkaichi because "yokkaichi" means "market on fourth day." In Edo period
Edo period
The , or , is a division of Japanese history which was ruled by the shoguns of the Tokugawa family, running from 1603 to 1868. The political entity of this period was the Tokugawa shogunate....

, Yokkaichi-juku
Yokkaichi-juku
was the forty-third of the fifty-three stations of the Tōkaidō. It is located in the present-day city of Yokkaichi, in Mie Prefecture, Japan. It was 12.8 km from Kuwana-juku, the preceding post town.-History:...

 was the forty-third station on the Tōkaidō
Tokaido (road)
The ' was the most important of the Five Routes of the Edo period, connecting Edo to Kyoto in Japan. Unlike the inland and less heavily travelled Nakasendō, the Tōkaidō travelled along the sea coast of eastern Honshū, hence the route's name....

.

Yokkaichi's port advanced remarkably during the Meiji period, primarily under the guidance of Inaba Sanuemon, a resident merchant interested increasing trade into Yokkaichi and the Ise area by modernizing the port facilities. Started in 1872, the project took 12 years to complete due to typhoons and difficulties in financing the project. This led to the port city being designated an Official International Port in 1899. The primary trade items shipped through Yokkaichi were originally seed oil, Banko ceramics, and Ise tea; but now it has developed into a port that now handles cotton, wool, glass, and heavy equipment.

The city was designated a 'modern city' on August 1, 1897. From 1960 to 1972, the city residents suffered health problems caused by the emission of SOx
Sulfur oxide
Sulfur oxide refers to one or more of the following:* Lower sulfur oxides * Sulfur monoxide * Sulfur dioxide * Sulfur trioxide *Higher sulfur oxides Sulfur oxide (SOx) refers to one or more of the following:* Lower sulfur oxides (SnO, S7O2 and S6O2)* Sulfur monoxide (SO)* Sulfur dioxide (SO2)*...

 into the atmosphere from local oil chemical plants. In Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

, a disease called Yokkaichi zensoku (Yokkaichi Asthma
Yokkaichi Asthma
Yokkaichi asthma, one of the Four Big Pollution Diseases of Japan, occurred in the city of Yokkaichi in Mie Prefecture, Japan between 1960 and 1972...

) derives its name from the city, and it is considered one of the Four Big Pollution Diseases of Japan
Four Big Pollution Diseases of Japan
The were a group of manmade diseases all caused by environmental pollution due to improper handling of industrial wastes by Japanese corporations. Although some cases of these diseases occurred as early as 1912, most occurred in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s....

.
On February 7, 2005 the town of Kusu
Kusu, Mie
was a town located in Mie District, Mie, Japan.On February 7, 2005 Kusu was merged into the city of Yokkaichi.As of 2003, the town had an estimated population of 11,153 and a density of 1,437.24 persons per km². The total area was 7.76 km²....

, from Mie District
Mie District, Mie
Mie is a district located in Mie, Japan.As of the Kusu merger but with 2003 population estimates, the district has an estimated population of 57,507 and a density of 473 persons per km². The total area is 121.59 km².-Merger:...

, was merged into Yokkaichi.

Transportation

Yokkaichi is served by both JR
Central Japan Railway Company
The is the main railway company operating in the Chūbu region of central Japan. It is officially abbreviated in English as JR Central and in Japanese as . Its headquarters are located in the JR Central Towers in Nakamura-ku, Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture.The company's operational hub is Nagoya Station...

 and Kintetsu
Kintetsu
, named Kinki Nippon Railway Co., Ltd. in English until June 27, 2003, is a Japanese rail transit corporation commonly known as . It is the largest non-JR railway in Japan. Its complex network of lines connects Osaka, Kyoto, Nara, Nagoya, Tsu and Ise...

 rail lines.

The Higashi Meihan Highway (東名阪自動車道), which leads to Nagoya, was built along the foot of Suzuka Mountains.

Port of Yokkaichi is the secondary port in Ise Bay
Ise Bay
Ise Bay is a bay located at the mouth of the Kiso River between Mie and Aichi Prefectures in Japan. Ise Bay has an average depth of 19.5 metres and a maximum depth of 30 metres toward the centre. The mouth of the bay is 9 kilometres wide and is connected to the smaller Mikawa Bay by two channels:...

.

Sister cities

Yokkaichi has 2 sister cities and 1 sister port. Long Beach, California
Long Beach, California
Long Beach is a city situated in Los Angeles County in Southern California, on the Pacific coast of the United States. The city is the 36th-largest city in the nation and the seventh-largest in California. As of 2010, its population was 462,257...

(USA)- October 7, 1963 Tianjin
Tianjin
' is a metropolis in northern China and one of the five national central cities of the People's Republic of China. It is governed as a direct-controlled municipality, one of four such designations, and is, thus, under direct administration of the central government...

(China)- October 28, 1980
  • Sydney
    Sydney
    Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...

     Port(Australia)- October 24, 1968

Famous people from Yokkaichi

  • Katsunori Matsui - manga
    Manga
    Manga is the Japanese word for "comics" and consists of comics and print cartoons . In the West, the term "manga" has been appropriated to refer specifically to comics created in Japan, or by Japanese authors, in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 19th...

     artist
  • Goseki Kojima
    Goseki Kojima
    was a Japanese manga artist.-Biography:Kojima was born on the same day as Osamu Tezuka. After getting out of junior high school, Kojima painted advertising posters for movie theaters as his source of income....

     - manga artist
  • Jun Kuki - tennis player
  • Miki Mizuno
    Miki Mizuno
    Miki Mizuno is a Japanese actress. Her film credits include a leading role in the second new Gamera film: Gamera 2: Attack of Legion -Television:...

     - actress
  • Fumio Niwa
    Fumio Niwa
    was a Japanese novelist with a long list of works, the most famous in the West being his novel The Buddha Tree .-Career:...

     - author
  • Toshiya Fujita
    Toshiya Fujita (director)
    , also known as Shigeya Fujita, was a Japanese filmmaker, film actor, and screenwriter. He was born in Pyongyang, Korea. After graduating from Tokyo University, he entered the Nikkatsu studio in 1955 and made his debut as a director in 1967. He won the Directors Guild of Japan New Directors Award...

     - movie director
  • Katsuya Okada
    Katsuya Okada
    is a Japanese politician. A member of the House of Representatives of Japan, he is Secretary-General of the Democratic Party of Japan and was previously its President. From September 2009 to September 2010, he was Foreign Minister of Japan....

     - Foreign Affairs Minister
    Minister for Foreign Affairs (Japan)
    The of Japan is the Cabinet member responsible for Japanese foreign policy and the chief executive of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.Since the end of the American occupation of Japan, the position has been one of the most powerful in the Cabinet, as Japan's economic interests have long relied on...

  • Takuya Okada - chairman emeritus of AEON Group
    AEON Group
    is a group of retail and financial services companies based in Chiba, Japan, which is centered on Æon Co., Ltd. It has sister companies in Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Malaysia, and also trades under the JUSCO name. It claims to be Japan's largest retail group in terms of sales...

  • Katsuaki Watanabe
    Katsuaki Watanabe
    is vice chairman of Toyota Motor Corporation. He was president and CEO of the company before Akio Toyoda assumed those positions on June 23, 2009.Watanabe, who earned a degree in economics from Tokyo's Keio University, joined Toyota upon graduating from that university in 1964.He has gained...

     - president of Toyota Motor Corporation
    Toyota Motor Corporation
    , , , commonly known simply as Toyota and abbreviated as TMC, is a multinational automaker headquartered in Toyota, Aichi, Japan. In 2010, Toyota Motor Corporation employed 317,734 people worldwide, and was the world's largest automobile manufacturer by production.The company was founded by...

  • Satoshi Saida
    Satoshi Saida
    is a Japanese pioneering wheelchair tennis player and 2004 Summer Paralympics gold medalist .Saida, a big baseball enthusiast in his childhood, lost his left leg because of illness. At first, he used to play wheelchair basketball with his friends...

     - wheelchair tennis player
  • Yumehito of Ayabie
    Ayabie
    , was a Japanese visual kei band signed to the label Tokuma Japan Communications. Their music consisted of a wide variety of sounds and moods, ranging from catchy and upbeat to heavy and hard-edged punk songs. Many of the band's costumes were designed by ID Japan or H. Naoto...

     (Ex-Soroban)- musician
  • Ōzutsu Takeshi
    Ōzutsu Takeshi
    Ōzutsu Takeshi is a former sumo wrestler from Mie, Japan. Beginning his professional career in May 1971, he was ranked in the top makuuchi division continuously from March 1979 to January 1992, and his record of 1170 consecutive bouts there is the second best in history after Takamiyama. His...

     - sumo
    Sumo
    is a competitive full-contact sport where a wrestler attempts to force another wrestler out of a circular ring or to touch the ground with anything other than the soles of the feet. The sport originated in Japan, the only country where it is practiced professionally...

     wrestler
  • Senri Kawaguchi - young female drummer

External links

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