Ishikawa

Ishikawa is long and narrow, running some 200 kilometres from the forests of Hakusan on the Fukui and Gifu borders to the tip of the Noto Peninsula. The southern part, the old province of Kaga, is a coastal plain with Kanazawa and the industrial towns of Komatsu and Hakusan; the northern part, Noto, is a hilly peninsula thrust into the Sea of Japan.

For almost three centuries the Maeda family ruled Kaga, Noto and Etchū as the Kaga domain, the richest fief in Edo Japan. Barred from military ambition, the Maeda invested in culture: tea, Noh, gardens and, above all, crafts. Kanazawa gold leaf, Kutani porcelain, Kaga yūzen silk and the lacquerware of Wajima and Yamanaka all flourished under their patronage and remain living industries.

The Noto Peninsula preserves an older rural Japan of terraced paddies, salt-making by hand and village festivals, recognised in 2011 as a Globally Important Agricultural Heritage System. On 1 January 2024 a magnitude 7.6 earthquake struck the peninsula, causing heavy loss of life and severe damage in Wajima, Suzu and neighbouring towns.

The prefecture takes its name from Ishikawa District, a district of Kaga province south of Kanazawa, where the prefectural office was briefly located at Mikawa in 1872 before returning to Kanazawa. The name, "stony river", is thought to refer to the Tedori River.

After the abolition of the han the Kaga domain became Kanazawa Prefecture, soon renamed Ishikawa; Noto was added in 1872. Between 1876 and 1883 Ishikawa also administered Etchū and part of Echizen, until Fukui (1881) and Toyama (1883) were separated, leaving the present borders.

In the south the Ryōhaku mountains rise to Hakusan (2,702 m), one of Japan's three sacred mountains, whose rivers, above all the Tedori, have built the Kaga Plain. The coast of Kaga is a line of dunes and lagoons, among them Kahokugata and the lakes of Kaga's hot-spring towns, with the hard beach of Chirihama where cars can drive along the shore.

Noto is a low, hilly peninsula. Its eastern side encloses the sheltered Nanao Bay with Notojima island, while the northern Sotoura coast faces the open sea with rocky shores, terraced rice fields and small ports. Hegura-jima, about 50 kilometres offshore from Wajima, is a small island traditionally home to women divers.

Ishikawa has a Sea of Japan climate: winters are cloudy and wet, with thunder and snow; Kanazawa is one of the rainiest prefectural capitals in Japan. Snow is heavy in the Hakusan mountains but lighter on the coast and in Noto. Summers are hot and humid. Kanazawa's gardens are known in winter for yukizuri, the conical rope supports that protect pine branches from snow.

Kaga and Noto were early provinces on the Hokurikudō. In 1488 the followers of the Ikkō sect overthrew the governor of Kaga and governed the province through a league of temples and local warriors for nearly a century, with the fortified temple of Oyama Gobō, on the site of today's Kanazawa Castle, as their centre. Oda Nobunaga's generals ended this in 1580.

In 1583 Maeda Toshiie entered Kanazawa. His descendants held the domain, assessed at over one million koku of rice, until 1871, and made Kanazawa one of the largest cities in Japan. Because Kanazawa escaped bombing in the Second World War, its castle-town fabric survives unusually well.

In recent decades the Hokuriku Shinkansen, reaching Kanazawa in 2015, brought the region much closer to Tokyo. The Noto Peninsula was hit by earthquakes in 2007 and, far more severely, on 1 January 2024; in September 2024 torrential rain caused further flooding and landslides in northern Noto.

Ishikawa's culture carries the stamp of the Maeda. The domain invited craftsmen from Kyoto and Edo, fostered the Hōshō school of Noh and the Urasenke tea tradition, and made Kanazawa a city of tea houses and sweets. The prefecture has one of the largest numbers of nationally designated traditional crafts in Japan.

Noto has a different, communal culture centred on village shrines. Its summer kiriko festivals, in which towering illuminated lanterns are carried through the streets, and the Aenokoto ritual, in which farmers host the invisible god of the rice fields in their homes, are among Japan's most distinctive folk traditions.

Kaga cuisine is refined and seasonal, served on local lacquer and porcelain. The Sea of Japan provides snow crab, sweet shrimp and the prized nodoguro (blackthroat seaperch); Noto adds its fish sauce ishiru and sea salt. Kanazawa is one of Japan's great cities for wagashi, the traditional sweets that accompany tea.

Manufacturing is concentrated in the Kaga Plain: Komatsu is the birthplace of one of the world's largest makers of construction machinery, and the prefecture is known for textile machinery, machine tools, food-packaging equipment and electronic components. Synthetic-fibre weaving grew out of the region's silk industry.

Traditional crafts, tourism centred on Kanazawa and the Kaga hot springs, fisheries and agriculture complete the economy. Noto relies on fishing, farming, crafts and tourism.