1.
Kumamoto Prefecture
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Kumamoto Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located on the island of Kyushu. The capital is the city of Kumamoto, historically, the area was called Higo Province, and the province was renamed Kumamoto during the Meiji Restoration. The creation of prefectures was part of the abolition of the feudal system, the current Japanese orthography for Kumamoto literally means bear root/origin, or origin of the bear. Kumamoto Prefecture is in the center of Kyushu, the southernmost of the four major Japanese islands, mount Aso, an extensive active volcano, is in the east of Kumamoto Prefecture. This volcano is located at the centre of the Aso caldera, fourteen cities are located in Kumamoto Prefecture, These are the towns and villages in each district, The population is 1,812,255. The prefecture ranks 23rd in Japan, the population density is 244.76 people per square kilometer. There is a Honda automobile plant, mount Aso is one of the worlds largest active volcanoes. Kumamoto has a city located in Texas named San Antonio. In 2015 the mascot, Kumamon visited as an ambassador during the festival located at the Japanese Tea Gardens. ISBN 978-0-674-01753-5, OCLC58053128 Official website National Archives of Japan
2.
Japan
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Japan is a sovereign island nation in Eastern Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies off the eastern coast of the Asia Mainland and stretches from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea, the kanji that make up Japans name mean sun origin. 日 can be read as ni and means sun while 本 can be read as hon, or pon, Japan is often referred to by the famous epithet Land of the Rising Sun in reference to its Japanese name. Japan is an archipelago consisting of about 6,852 islands. The four largest are Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu and Shikoku, the country is divided into 47 prefectures in eight regions. Hokkaido being the northernmost prefecture and Okinawa being the southernmost one, the population of 127 million is the worlds tenth largest. Japanese people make up 98. 5% of Japans total population, approximately 9.1 million people live in the city of Tokyo, the capital of Japan. Archaeological research indicates that Japan was inhabited as early as the Upper Paleolithic period, the first written mention of Japan is in Chinese history texts from the 1st century AD. Influence from other regions, mainly China, followed by periods of isolation, from the 12th century until 1868, Japan was ruled by successive feudal military shoguns who ruled in the name of the Emperor. Japan entered into a period of isolation in the early 17th century. The Second Sino-Japanese War of 1937 expanded into part of World War II in 1941, which came to an end in 1945 following the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japan is a member of the UN, the OECD, the G7, the G8, the country has the worlds third-largest economy by nominal GDP and the worlds fourth-largest economy by purchasing power parity. It is also the worlds fourth-largest exporter and fourth-largest importer, although Japan has officially renounced its right to declare war, it maintains a modern military with the worlds eighth-largest military budget, used for self-defense and peacekeeping roles. Japan is a country with a very high standard of living. Its population enjoys the highest life expectancy and the third lowest infant mortality rate in the world, in ancient China, Japan was called Wo 倭. It was mentioned in the third century Chinese historical text Records of the Three Kingdoms in the section for the Wei kingdom, Wa became disliked because it has the connotation of the character 矮, meaning dwarf. The 倭 kanji has been replaced with the homophone Wa, meaning harmony, the Japanese word for Japan is 日本, which is pronounced Nippon or Nihon and literally means the origin of the sun. The earliest record of the name Nihon appears in the Chinese historical records of the Tang dynasty, at the start of the seventh century, a delegation from Japan introduced their country as Nihon
3.
Camellia
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Camellia is a genus of flowering plants in the family Theaceae. They are found in eastern and southern Asia, from the Himalayas east to Japan, there are 100–300 described species, with some controversy over the exact number. There are also around 3,000 hybrids, the genus was named by Linnaeus after the Jesuit botanist Georg Joseph Kamel, who worked in the Philippines and described a species of camellia. Of economic importance in the Indian subcontinent and Asia, leaves of C. sinensis are processed to create the popular beverage, the ornamental C. japonica, C. sasanqua and their hybrids are the source of hundreds of garden cultivars. C. oleifera produces tea seed oil, used in cooking, Camellias are evergreen shrubs or small trees up to 20 m tall. Their leaves are arranged, simple, thick, serrated. Their flowers are large and conspicuous, one to 12 cm in diameter. The colors of the flowers vary from white through pink colors to red, truly yellow flowers are only in South China. Camellia flowers throughout the genus are characterized by a bouquet of conspicuous yellow stamens. The so-called fruit of plants is a dry capsule, sometimes subdivided in up to five compartments. The various species of plants are generally well-adapted to acidic soils rich in humus. Most species of camellias also require an amount of water, either from natural rainfall or from irrigation. However, some of the more unusual camellias – typically species from karst soils in Vietnam – can grow too much water. Camellia plants usually have a growth rate. Typically they will grow about 30 cm per year until mature – though this does vary depending on their variety, Camellia plants are used as food plants by the larvae of a number of Lepidoptera species, see List of Lepidoptera that feed on Camellia. Leaves of the Japanese camellia are susceptible to the fungal parasite Mycelia sterile, Camellia sinensis, the tea plant, is of major commercial importance because tea is made from its leaves. The species C. sinensis is the product of generations of selective breeding in order to bring out qualities considered desirable for tea. However, many other camellias can be used to produce a similar beverage, for example, in some parts of Japan, tea made from C. sasanqua leaves is popular
4.
Great tit
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The great tit is a passerine bird in the tit family Paridae. Until 2005 this species was lumped with other subspecies. The great tit remains the most widespread species in the genus Parus, the great tit is a distinctive bird with a black head and neck, prominent white cheeks, olive upperparts and yellow underparts, with some variation amongst the numerous subspecies. It is predominantly insectivorous in the summer, but will consume a range of food items in the winter months. Like all tits it is a cavity nester, usually nesting in a hole in a tree, the female lays around 12 eggs and incubates them alone, although both parents raise the chicks. In most years the pair will raise two broods, the nests may be raided by woodpeckers, squirrels and weasels and infested with fleas, and adults may be hunted by sparrowhawks. The great tit has adapted well to changes in the environment and is a common and familiar bird in urban parks. The great tit is also an important study species in ornithology, the great tit was originally described under its current binomial name by Linnaeus in his 18th century work, Systema Naturae. Its scientific name is derived from the Latin parus tit and maior larger, the great tit was formerly treated as ranging from Britain to Japan and south to the islands of Indonesia, with 36 described subspecies ascribed to four main species groups. The three bokharensis subspecies were often treated as a species, Parus bokharensis, the Turkestan tit. The divergence between the bokharensis and major groups was estimated to have been half a million years ago. The study also examined hybrids between representatives of the major and minor groups in the Amur Valley where the two meet, hybrids were rare, suggesting that there were some reproductive barriers between the two groups. The study recommended that the two eastern groups be split out as new species, the cinereous tit, and the Japanese tit and this taxonomy has been followed by some authorities, for example the IOC World Bird List. The nominate subspecies of the great tit is the most widespread, its range stretching from the Iberian Peninsula to the Amur Valley and from Scandinavia to the Middle East. The other subspecies have much more restricted distributions, four being restricted to islands, the dominance of a single, morphologically uniform subspecies over such a large area suggests that the nominate race rapidly recolonised a large area after the last glacial epoch. This hypothesis is supported by studies which suggest a geologically recent genetic bottleneck followed by a rapid population expansion. The genus Parus once held most of the species of tit in the family Paridae, the great tit was retained in Parus, which, along with Cyanistes comprise a lineage of tits known as the non-hoarders, with reference to the hoarding behaviour of members of the other clade. The genus Parus is still the largest in the family, other than those species formerly considered to be subspecies, the great tits closest relatives are the white-naped and green-backed tits of southern Asia
5.
History of Kumamoto Prefecture
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The history of Kumamoto Prefecture has been documented from paleolithic times to the present. Kumamoto Prefecture is the half of Hinokuni, and corresponds to what was once called Higo Province. Exceptions are the part of Kuma District, which had once been part of Sagara Domain, the first one is the Kumamoto han, and the second the Hitoyoshi han and the third one is the Amakusa Area, once controlled by the Tokugawa shogunate. After the establishment of the Yamato Government or Yamato Ouken, the history of Kumamoto has been constantly under the influence of the Central Government, about one-third of the archaeological sites of the Lower Paleolithic age in Japan were found in Kumamoto Prefecture. A few of these have been excavated, mainly these were in the outer Aso mountain areas and Kuma district. The oldest one is the Ishinomoto Site in Hirayama machi in Kumamoto City, a large number of artifacts or stone tools such as stone axes and knives were excavated, suggesting that Kyūshū was inhabited by a number of hunter-gatherer societies. At the same time, Kyūshū experienced volcanic activity at Mount Aso, Aira Caldera in Kagoshima Prefecture, there were four large series of Mount Aso volcanic eruptions, with structural changes. The last one was about 90,000 years ago, the lava produced stone materials that would later be used for bridge construction in the Prefecture. The Goryo midden and Kurohashi midden date to the age of the Jōmon period. Later,13 middens in Kumamoto were situated at the height of 5 meters above sea level, in Souhata midden, stored acorns were found. Fish hooks made of stone were found in Amakusa, a peculiar style of earthenware called kokushokukenmadoki was developed according to the development of living styles. Burned rice corns and barley corns were found in a dwelling in Uenobaru midden in Kumamoto City. 770 Archaeological sites were found in the Jōmon period in Kumamoto Prefecture, including Kannabe midden, Kumamoto in which Dogūs, in the Yayoi period, there appeared dwellings in ring-formed groups in which onggis, tsubo jars, and stone axes were found. Dwellings rose into higher places, moving from the seashores, cultivation and agriculture started in the Yayoi period, because the Kumamoto plane started to rise because of stream sediments from the rivers. Cultivation of rice started, while there were shell heaps along the seashore, salt was produced by burning sea weeds, which has been verified by the presence of burned small seashells. In the Yayoi period, there were 740 middens in Kumamoto Prefecture, in the Tokuo midden and the Kogabaru midden, bronze mirrors were excavated. In the Nihon Shoki, Japans earliest official document, the countries of Yamato Ouken, Wa, appointed a king of a small area which came under the Yamato Ouken. Yamato Ouken is considered to be the forerunner of the Japans Imperial House of Japan existing in the Nara area or somewhere, there are about 1,300 Kofuns in Kumamoto Prefecture, and comprise 24% of kofuns in the country
6.
Toyotomi Hideyoshi
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Toyotomi Hideyoshi was a preeminent daimyō, warrior, general, samurai, and politician of the Sengoku period who is regarded as Japans second great unifier. He succeeded his former lord, Oda Nobunaga, and brought an end to the Warring States period. The period of his rule is called the Momoyama period. After his death, his young son Hideyori was displaced by Tokugawa Ieyasu, Hideyoshi is noted for a number of cultural legacies, including the restriction that only members of the samurai class could bear arms. He financed the construction, restoration and rebuilding of many temples standing today in Kyoto, Hideyoshi played an important role in the history of Christianity in Japan when he ordered the execution by crucifixion of twenty-six Christians. Very little is known for certain about Hideyoshi before 1570, when he begins to appear in surviving documents and his autobiography starts in 1577 but in it Hideyoshi spoke very little about his past. According to tradition, he was born in Owari Province, the home of the Oda clan and he was born of no traceable samurai lineage, being the son of a peasant-ashigaru named Yaemon. He had no surname, and his given name was Hiyoshi-maru although variations exist. Many legends describe Hideyoshi being sent to study at a temple as a young man, under the name Kinoshita Tōkichirō, he first joined the Imagawa clan as a servant to a local ruler named Matsushita Yukitsuna. He traveled all the way to the lands of Imagawa Yoshimoto, daimyō of Suruga Province, in 1558 he joined the Oda clan, now headed by Oda Nobunaga, as an ashigaru. According to his biographers, he supervised the repair of Kiyosu Castle, a described as apocryphal. In 1561, Hideyoshi married One who was Asano Nagakatsus adopted daughter and he carried out repairs on Sunomata Castle with his younger brother Toyotomi Hidenaga and the bandits Hachisuka Masakatsu and Maeno Nagayasu. Hideyoshis efforts were well received because Sunomata was in enemy territory and he constructed a fort in Sunomata, according to legend overnight, and discovered a secret route into Mount Inaba after which much of the garrison surrendered. Hideyoshi was very successful as a negotiator, in 1564, he managed to convince, mostly with liberal bribes, a number of Mino warlords to desert the Saitō clan. Hideyoshi approached many Saitō clan samurai and convinced them to submit to Nobunaga, including the Saitō clans strategist, the new surname included two characters, one each from Odas two other right-hand men, Niwa Nagahide and Shibata Katsuie. Hideyoshi led troops in the Battle of Anegawa in 1570 in which Oda Nobunaga allied with Tokugawa Ieyasu to lay siege to two fortresses of the Azai and Asakura clans and he participated in the 1573 Siege of Nagashima. In 1573, after victorious campaigns against the Azai and Asakura, initially based at the former Azai headquarters in Odani, Hideyoshi moved to Kunitomo, and renamed the city Nagahama in tribute to Nobunaga. Hideyoshi later moved to the port at Imahama on Lake Biwa, from there he began work on Imahama Castle and took control of the nearby Kunitomo firearms factory that had been established some years previously by the Azai and Asakura
7.
Kumamoto Castle
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Kumamoto Castle is a hilltop Japanese castle located in Chūō-ku, Kumamoto in Kumamoto Prefecture. It was a large and well fortified castle, the castle keep is a concrete reconstruction built in 1960, but several ancillary wooden buildings remain of the original castle. Kumamoto Castle is considered one of the three castles in Japan, along with Himeji Castle and Matsumoto Castle. Thirteen structures in the complex are designated Important Cultural Property. Kumamoto Castles history dates to 1467, when fortifications were established by Ideta Hidenobu, in 1496, these fortifications were expanded by Kanokogi Chikakazu. In 1588, Katō Kiyomasa was transferred to the incarnation of Kumamoto Castle. From 1601 to 1607, Kiyomasa greatly expanded the castle, transforming it into a complex with 49 turrets,18 turret gates. The smaller castle tower, built sometime after the keep, had several facilities including a well, in 1610, the Honmaru Goten Palace was completed. The castle complex measures roughly 1.6 km from east to west, the castle keep is 30.3 m tall. The castle was besieged in 1877 during the Satsuma Rebellion,13 of the buildings in the castle complex were undamaged, and have been designated Important Cultural Properties. In 1960, the keep was reconstructed using concrete. From 1998 to 2008, the complex underwent restoration work. The signature curved stone walls, known as musha-gaeshi, as well as wooden overhangs, were designed to prevent attackers from penetrating the castle, rock falls were also used as deterrents. In nearby San-no-Maru Park is the Hosokawa Gyobu-tei, the residence of the Hosokawa clan. This traditional wooden mansion has a noted Japanese garden located in its grounds, in 2006, Kumamoto Castle was listed as one of the 100 Fine Castles of Japan by the Japan Castle Foundation. On December 7,2007, a renovation of the Inner Palace was completed. A public ceremony for the restoration was held on April 20,2008, the castle sustained damage in a magnitude 6.2 earthquake that struck at 9,26 pm on 14 April 2016, in Mashiki town in Kumamoto prefecture. This event is similar to the 1889 Kumamoto earthquake which also damaged the castle
8.
Hosokawa clan
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It produced many prominent officials in the Ashikaga shogunates administration. In the Edo period, the Hosokawa clan was one of the largest landholding daimyō families in Japan, in the present day, the current clan head Morihiro Hosokawa, has served as Prime Minister of Japan. Ashikaga Yoshisue, son of Ashikaga Yoshizane, was the first to take the name of Hosokawa, Hosokawa Yoriharu, a Hosokawa of the late Kamakura period, fought for the Ashikaga clan against the Kamakura shogunate. Another, Hosokawa Akiuji, helped establish the Ashikaga shogunate, the clan wielded significant power over the course of the Muromachi, Sengoku, and Edo periods, moving, however, from Shikoku, to Kinai, and then to Kyūshū over the centuries. The clan was one of three families to dominate the post of Kanrei, under the Ashikaga shogunate. One such individual was Hosokawa Yoriyuki, at the beginning of the Ashikagas rule, the Hosokawa were given control of the entirety of Shikoku. Over the course of this period, members of the Hosokawa clan were Constables of Awa, Awaji, Bitchū, Izumi, Sanuki, Settsu, Tanba, Tosa, and Yamashiro Provinces. Following the fall of the Ashikaga shogunate, which was based in Kyoto, control of the city, katsumotos son, Hosokawa Masamoto, held power in this way at the end of the 15th century, but was assassinated in 1507. After his death, the clan became divided and was weakened by internecine fighting, what power they still had, however, was centered in and around Kyoto. This gave them the leverage to consolidate their power to some extent, the Hosokawa remained in Kyoto for roughly one hundred years, fleeing the city when it was attacked by Oda Nobunaga. Another division of the clan whom many have believe had extinct is the Saikyū clan, the Hosokawa of Kokura became the main line of the Hosokawa clan during the Edo period. Hosokawa Gracia, the wife of Hosokawa Tadaoki, was one of the most famous samurai converts to Christianity, the Hosokawa sided with Tokugawa Ieyasu against Ishida Mitsunari during the decisive Sekigahara Campaign, and thus were made fudai daimyō under the Tokugawa shogunate. They were given Higo Province, with an income of 540,000 koku, Hosokawa Tadatoshi, the third lord of Kumamoto, was the patron of the swordsman Miyamoto Musashi. Though the Hosokawa domain was far from the capital, on Kyūshū, by 1750, Higo was one of the top producers of rice, and was in fact counted as a standard by the Osaka rice brokers. The domain suffered from economic decline after that, as most domains did. He also founded a Han school, Jishūkan, in 1755, in later years, it produced many scholars such as Yokoi Shōnan. In 1787, the family line descended from Tadatoshi became extinct with the death of the 7th lord. He was succeeded by his distant cousin Narishige, the sixth Lord of Udo a direct descendant of Tadatoshis younger brother Yukitaka, in 1810, Narishige abdicated his title in favor of his elder son Naritatsu, who succeeded as the ninth lord of Kumamoto
9.
Peace Pagoda
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A Peace Pagoda is a Buddhist stupa, a monument to inspire peace, designed to provide a focus for people of all races and creeds, and to help unite them in their search for world peace. Most peace pagodas built since World War II have been built under the guidance of Nichidatsu Fujii, Fujii was greatly inspired by his meeting with Mahatma Gandhi in 1931 and decided to devote his life to promoting non-violence. In 1947, he began constructing Peace Pagodas as shrines to World peace, by 2000, eighty Peace Pagodas had been built around the world in Europe, Asia, and the United States. The Nipponzan-Myōhōji monks of the New England Peace Pagoda were awarded the Courage of Conscience award June 5,1998 in Sherborn, Massachusetts. The Rajgir Vishwa Shanti Stupa/World Peace Pagoda was completed in 1969 at Rajgir hills near Rajgir, the dedication coincided with the 100th anniversary of the birth of Mahatma Gandhi. The site also includes a Nipponzan Myohoji temple, the shanthi stupas in India were established by Fuji Guru, a close friend of Mahatma Gandhi, for World Peace. The Nipponzan Myōhōji Buddhist temple at Charlimont in Darjeeling is one of them, work on the Stupa began in 1972 and it was dedicated on 1 November 1992. A Vishwa Shanti Stupa/World Peace Pagoda in New Delhi was inaugurated on 20th, November 2007 by monks and nuns of Nipponzan-Myōhōji, the Dalai Lama and the Lt. It is situated in Millennium Indraprastha Park, North-East of Humayuns Tomb, a traditional Japanese garden has been constructed in the area around the stupa. The garden is a joint project by the Fujii Guruji Vishwa Shanti Stupa Committee, the Dhauli Giri Shanti Stupa was built in Bhubaneswar, Orissa State, India during a two-year period, and was inaugurated on November 8,1972. It was established by Sri Nitya Nanda Kanungo, Governor of Bihar, with the guidance of Nichidatsu Fujii. The Shanti Stupa in Ladakh was built by Nipponzan-Myōhōji monks, headed by Head monk Nakamura, the 14th and current Dalai Lama inaugurated the Shanti Stupa in August 1985. The stupa at Vaishali was inaugurated 23 October 1996, Vaishali is an important place in the life of the Buddha. Vishwa Shanti stupa was a dream of Fujii guruji and it is a large stupa of white color. Statues of Buddha are mounted on the stupa, facing in four directions and it also has a small Japanese Buddhist temple with a large park. There is a temple near the stupa where prayers are done for universal peace. Work on Hanaokayama Peace Pagoda, the first Peace Pagoda constructed by Nipponzan Myohoji Japanese Buddhist monks and it took seven years to build, being completed in 1954. This Peace Pagoda was built by Nipponzan-Myōhōji monks in 1959 halfway up Mount Moiwa and it was built to commemorate peace after World War II and can be seen from almost anywhere in Sapporo. It contains some of the ashes of the Buddha that were presented to the Emperor of Japan by Prime Minister Nehru in 1954, later, another part of these were presented to Mikhail Gorbachev by the famous Nipponzan-Myōhōji monk, Junsei Terasawa
10.
India
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India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and it is bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the southwest, and the Bay of Bengal on the southeast. It shares land borders with Pakistan to the west, China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the northeast, in the Indian Ocean, India is in the vicinity of Sri Lanka and the Maldives. Indias Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a border with Thailand. The Indian subcontinent was home to the urban Indus Valley Civilisation of the 3rd millennium BCE, in the following millennium, the oldest scriptures associated with Hinduism began to be composed. Social stratification, based on caste, emerged in the first millennium BCE, early political consolidations took place under the Maurya and Gupta empires, the later peninsular Middle Kingdoms influenced cultures as far as southeast Asia. In the medieval era, Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and Islam arrived, much of the north fell to the Delhi sultanate, the south was united under the Vijayanagara Empire. The economy expanded in the 17th century in the Mughal empire, in the mid-18th century, the subcontinent came under British East India Company rule, and in the mid-19th under British crown rule. A nationalist movement emerged in the late 19th century, which later, under Mahatma Gandhi, was noted for nonviolent resistance, in 2015, the Indian economy was the worlds seventh largest by nominal GDP and third largest by purchasing power parity. Following market-based economic reforms in 1991, India became one of the major economies and is considered a newly industrialised country. However, it continues to face the challenges of poverty, corruption, malnutrition, a nuclear weapons state and regional power, it has the third largest standing army in the world and ranks sixth in military expenditure among nations. India is a constitutional republic governed under a parliamentary system. It is a pluralistic, multilingual and multi-ethnic society and is home to a diversity of wildlife in a variety of protected habitats. The name India is derived from Indus, which originates from the Old Persian word Hindu, the latter term stems from the Sanskrit word Sindhu, which was the historical local appellation for the Indus River. The ancient Greeks referred to the Indians as Indoi, which translates as The people of the Indus, the geographical term Bharat, which is recognised by the Constitution of India as an official name for the country, is used by many Indian languages in its variations. Scholars believe it to be named after the Vedic tribe of Bharatas in the second millennium B. C. E and it is also traditionally associated with the rule of the legendary emperor Bharata. Gaṇarājya is the Sanskrit/Hindi term for republic dating back to the ancient times, hindustan is a Persian name for India dating back to the 3rd century B. C. E. It was introduced into India by the Mughals and widely used since then and its meaning varied, referring to a region that encompassed northern India and Pakistan or India in its entirety
Billings, Montana, United States
Bristol, United Kingdom
Guilin, China
Heidelberg, Germany (since 1992)[15]
Ulsan, South Korea (since 2010)
Kaohsiung, Taiwan (since 2017)[17]
Kumamoto travel guide from Wikivoyage (in English)
Geographic data related to Kumamoto at OpenStreetMap
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