Kochi

Kochi is the largest prefecture of Shikoku by area and the most heavily forested in Japan. It occupies the entire Pacific side of the island, a coast of more than 700 kilometres that curves around Tosa Bay between the capes of Muroto in the east and Ashizuri in the west. Behind it, the Shikoku Mountains cut the prefecture off from the rest of the island, and for most of history Tosa was reached more easily by sea than by land.

That isolation shaped a distinctive character. People from Tosa are proverbially outspoken, independent and fond of drink, and the province produced a disproportionate number of the reformers of the nineteenth century, above all Sakamoto Ryōma, who helped bring about the Meiji Restoration, and Itagaki Taisuke, leader of the Freedom and People's Rights Movement. Kōchi Castle, in the capital, keeps one of Japan's twelve original keeps.

Nature defines the prefecture: the Shimanto River, often called Japan's last clear stream, the blue water of the Niyodo, the capes and the warm Kuroshio Current, which brings bonito, whales and dolphins close to shore. Tosa's 16 henro temples, separated by long coastal walks, form the pilgrimage's "dōjō of ascetic training".

The prefecture is named after its capital, Kōchi, whose castle was built by Yamauchi Kazutoyo on a hill originally called Kōchiyama, written 河中山 ("mountain between the rivers"), because it stood between the Kagami and Enokuchi rivers. After repeated floods the characters were changed to 高智 and later 高知, "high knowledge".

Kochi corresponds to the province of Tosa, ruled in the Edo period by the Yamauchi as a single domain. Kōchi Prefecture was established in 1871; from 1876 to 1880 it also included Tokushima, after which it took its present form.

Most of Kochi is mountainous, with only small plains such as the Kōchi plain around the capital and the Nakamura plain at the mouth of the Shimanto. The Shikoku Mountains, reaching over 1,800 metres near the Ehime border, feed rivers that run south through deep valleys: the Niyodo, the Monobe, the Aki and, longest of all, the Shimanto, which meanders for 196 kilometres without a major dam on its main stream.

The coast faces the Pacific directly. Cape Muroto, rising from the sea as a result of repeated earthquakes, is a UNESCO Global Geopark; Cape Ashizuri in the west, with the ria coast of Tatsukushi and the diving waters of Kashiwajima, lies in the Ashizuri-Uwakai National Park. Inland, the limestone cave of Ryūgadō and the Shikoku Karst plateau show the region's geological variety.

Kochi is warm and very wet. The Kuroshio Current keeps winters mild and sunny, allowing year-round greenhouse farming, while the rainy season and typhoons bring some of the heaviest rainfall in Japan; the capes are among the first places struck by typhoons approaching from the Pacific. Summers are hot, and the inland valleys can record extreme temperatures.

Tosa was a remote province used as a place of exile in the classical period. The poet Ki no Tsurayuki served as its governor and described his journey home in the Tosa Nikki of 935. In the sixteenth century Chōsokabe Motochika rose from Tosa to conquer almost all of Shikoku before submitting to Toyotomi Hideyoshi in 1585.

After Sekigahara the Yamauchi replaced the Chōsokabe and built Kōchi Castle. The domain's rigid distinction between Yamauchi retainers and former Chōsokabe vassals (gōshi) fuelled the loyalist movement of the 1860s, from which came Sakamoto Ryōma and Nakaoka Shintarō; the former lord Yamauchi Yōdō proposed the return of power to the emperor in 1867. In the Meiji era Itagaki Taisuke made Kōchi the centre of the Freedom and People's Rights Movement.

Kochi's people are known for their frankness, generosity and love of drinking parties, with a tradition of sharing large platters (sawachi) and drinking games that use cups which cannot be set down until emptied. The Yosakoi festival, created in 1954 and now imitated across Japan, fills the capital with dance teams each August.

For pilgrims, Tosa is the hardest stage of the henro, with its 16 temples spread along the coast: the distance from Temple 37 to Temple 38 at Cape Ashizuri is among the longest of the whole route. Crafts include Tosa washi, among the thinnest handmade papers in the world, and forged Tosa knives and tools.

The Kuroshio Current brings bonito close to the coast in spring and autumn, and katsuo no tataki is Kochi's signature dish. The warm climate supports year-round vegetables and citrus, and Kochi is one of Japan's leading growers of yuzu and ginger. Food is shared generously on large sawachi platters.

Kochi's economy relies on agriculture, fisheries and forestry more than most prefectures. Greenhouse farming on the sunny coast produces aubergines, ginger, green peppers and flowers through the winter; fishing ports land bonito and tuna; and the mountains supply cedar and cypress. Manufacturing is modest, and tourism centres on Kōchi Castle, Katsurahama, the Shimanto and the capes.