Oita Prefecture
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Ōita Prefecture (大分県; Ōita-ken) is located on Kyushu Island, Japan. The capital is the city of Oita.
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History
After the Meiji Restoration, Bungo and southern Buzen Provinces were combined to form Oita Prefecture. These provinces were divided among many local daimyo and a large castle town never formed in Oita.
Geography
Oita Prefecture is located on the north-eastern coast of the island of Kyushu. Surrounded by the Suo Channel and Honshu Island to the north, the Iyo Channel and Shikoku Island to the east, it is bordered by Miyazaki Prefecture to the south, and Fukuoka Prefecture and Kumamoto Prefecture to the west.
Oita Prefecture is almost entirely covered by mountains and has only narrow coastal plains.
Cities
Towns and villages
These are the towns and villages in each district.
Economy
Demographics
Culture
Tourism
Oita Prefecture is famous for its hot springs, particularly those in and around the city of Beppu, known as the 'hells', or jigoku. Many are of tourist interest only, and cannot be used as onsen - notably the Blood Pond Hell (reddish water) and the Oniyama Hell. The city's ryokans and public onsen are amply supplied by the same volcanic source. Visitors particularly relish the effects of burial in steaming hot volcanic sands.
Beppu offers a wide range of cultural experiences, from an annual international music festival, to the unabashed Hihokan Sex Museum.
A marine park - an elaborate public aquarium (called 'Umi-tamago')- on the shoreline outside Beppu features basketballing sea otters, performing archer fish, and puzzle-solving octopi, along with more naturalistic displays of freshwater and marine fish from around the world.
Near the marine park, Mount Takasaki Monkey Park rises steeply from the shoreline. Two distinct troupes of wild macaque monkeys make regular visits to the feeding grounds here, which were initially established to entice the monkeys away from raiding the region's fruit crops, a behaviour that brought them into conflict with farmers. The wild macaques ignore the small crowds that gather at these feeding sessions, and may be observed at close quarters.
Beppu is a busy passenger port with regular ferry links through the inland sea to Osaka and several other destinations.
Prefectural symbols
Miscellaneous topics
External links
- Official Oita Prefecture homepage (http://www.pref.oita.jp/english/index.html)
| edit (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Template:Japan&action=edit) | Prefectures of Japan | Missing image Japan_flag_large.png Flag of Japan |
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| Regions of Japan | ||
| Hokkaido | Tohoku | Kanto | Chubu (Hokuriku - Koshinetsu - Tokai) | Kansai | Chugoku | Shikoku | Kyushu | ||
| Major Cities | ||
| 23 wards of Tokyo | Chiba | Fukuoka | Hiroshima | Kawasaki | Kitakyushu | Kobe | Kyoto | Nagoya | Osaka | Saitama | Sapporo | Sendai | Shizuoka | Yokohama | ||
de:Präfektur Ōita es:Prefectura de Oita eo:Oita (prefektujo) fr:Préfecture d'Ōita ja:大分県 pt:Oita sv:Oita prefektur