Yamasaki, Hyōgo

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Yamasaki (山崎町, Yamasaki-chō^?) was a town in Shisō District, Hyōgo, Japan. On April 1, 2005 the town merged with three other towns from the district forming the city of Shisō and no longer exists as an independent municipality.

Yamasaki is about 45 minutes by car from the nearest city, Himeji, which is to the east.

As of 2003, the town had an estimated population of 25,629 and a density of 143.27 persons per km². The total area was 178.89 km². This population is served by a large hospital, the administrative center of Shisō City, and a major intercity highway, the Chūgoku Expressway. There is no rail link, largely dictated by geography. There is one large high school, three junior high schools,

Yamasaki translates as "Mountain Cape", a reference to its seclusion amongst a range of forest covered mountains. The extensive forest area provides the town's biggest industry, logging. The new Shisō City incorporates a number of local townships and villages, most significantly the castle town of Haga and Chikusa.

Yamasaki has existed as a town for about fifty years, but the area has been occupied since the Ōnin period in the fifteenth century, as its ancient "Hachiman Shrine" denotes. Today, it includes substantial rice paddy cultivation.

Yamazaki Anzai, an important Confucian scholar, has ancestry in the area and is Yamasaki's best known personage

[edit] External links

• (Japanese) Official website of Shiso