Shizuoka

Shizuoka stretches some 150 kilometres along the Pacific coast, from the Hakone mountains and the Izu Peninsula in the east to Lake Hamana in the west, with the Southern Alps rising along its northern border. Mount Fuji dominates the east of the prefecture; Suruga Bay, the deepest bay in Japan, lies below it.

The old Tōkaidō highway ran the length of the prefecture, with more post towns than in any other prefecture, and Tokugawa Ieyasu spent both his youth and his final years in Sunpu, today's Shizuoka City. In 1854 Shimoda on the Izu Peninsula became one of the first ports opened to American ships, and the reverberatory furnace at Nirayama is part of a World Heritage Site of Japan's industrialisation.

Today Shizuoka has a mixed economy. Its mild, sunny climate supports tea on the Makinohara plateau, mandarins and strawberries; its ports land bonito, tuna and the tiny sakura shrimp of Suruga Bay; and its western cities are home to famous makers of musical instruments, motorcycles and cars. The Izu Peninsula, with its hot springs, beaches and geopark, is one of the main resort areas near Tokyo.

The name Shizuoka was adopted in 1869, when the town of Sunpu, where the former Tokugawa shogun had retired, was renamed to avoid the character fu ("government") of its old name. The new name was taken from Shizuhata-yama, a hill behind the town.

The prefecture combines three old provinces: Suruga around Shizuoka, Tōtōmi around Hamamatsu, and Izu. Shizuoka Prefecture, based on Suruga, absorbed Hamamatsu Prefecture (Tōtōmi) and the Izu districts in 1876, giving it its present borders.

The east is volcanic: Mount Fuji, the Ashitaka range and the Izu Peninsula, which was formed by volcanic islands carried north on the Philippine Sea Plate that collided with Honshu. The peninsula is a UNESCO Global Geopark with craters, lava coasts and the Jōgasaki cliffs. Suruga Bay is a deep trough along the plate boundary, and the Fuji and Abe rivers reach it through wide alluvial fans.

Central and western Shizuoka are drained by the Ōi and Tenryū rivers from the Southern Alps. Between them lie the Makinohara plateau and the Iwata plateau, covered with tea gardens. In the far west, Lake Hamana is a large brackish lagoon connected to the sea, and the Nakatajima dunes line the coast near Hamamatsu.

Shizuoka has a mild Pacific climate: winters are sunny and dry with very little snow on the coast, and summers are hot and humid. The west can be very hot in summer. The Izu Peninsula is particularly mild, allowing early cherry blossoms at Kawazu and Atami, while the mountains of the north and the upper slopes of Fuji are cold and snowy in winter.

The Toro site in Shizuoka City preserves a Yayoi-period village with rice paddies. In the medieval period the Imagawa ruled Suruga and Tōtōmi from Sunpu until Imagawa Yoshimoto was killed at Okehazama in 1560. Tokugawa Ieyasu, who had spent his boyhood as a hostage in Sunpu, took Tōtōmi and based himself at Hamamatsu, and after handing the shogunate to his son he retired to Sunpu in 1607, governing from there until his death in 1616.

The Tōkaidō made the region a corridor of travel, famously depicted in Hiroshige's prints. At Nirayama, the magistrate Egawa Hidetatsu promoted a reverberatory furnace for casting cannon, completed in 1857. After the Restoration the last shogun, Tokugawa Yoshinobu, lived in Shizuoka for thirty years, and former retainers cleared the Makinohara plateau for tea.

In the twentieth century the Hamamatsu area became a birthplace of Japanese manufacturing, from pianos and organs to motorcycles and cars. The Tōkaidō Shinkansen and Tōmei Expressway made Shizuoka a transit corridor between Tokyo and Nagoya, and in 2013 Fuji, including Miho no Matsubara and Shiraito Falls, was inscribed as a World Heritage Site.

Shizuoka's culture is shaped by the Tōkaidō and by the Tokugawa. Its post towns, such as Yui and Kanaya, and the stone-paved pass of Satta, recall the travellers of the Edo period; Kunōzan Tōshōgū, Ieyasu's first resting place, is one of the most splendid shrines of the period. Tea is part of daily life, and tea-picking songs such as Chakkiri-bushi are known throughout Japan.

The western city of Hamamatsu has a strong musical identity as the home of piano and instrument makers, while Shizuoka City is the centre of Japan's plastic-model industry. Festivals range from Hamamatsu's kite battles to the Black Ship Festival of Shimoda, which recalls Commodore Perry's visit.

Shizuoka is Japan's classic tea prefecture, and its sencha set the standard for the country's everyday green tea. The sea contributes bonito and tuna landed at Yaizu and Shimizu, sakura shrimp and whitebait from Suruga Bay, golden-eye snapper from Izu and eel from Lake Hamana. Wasabi cultivation began in the mountains of Shizuoka City, and local dishes range from dark-broth Shizuoka oden to Hamamatsu gyōza.

Shizuoka has one of Japan's most diversified economies. Hamamatsu and its surroundings produce musical instruments, motorcycles, cars and outboard motors; Fuji and Fujinomiya make paper; Shizuoka City leads in plastic models; and pharmaceutical, electrical and food industries are spread across the prefecture.

Agriculture and fisheries are significant: Shizuoka is, with Kagoshima, one of the two leading producers of green tea and a major grower of mandarins, strawberries, wasabi and melons, while Yaizu is one of Japan's main fishing ports for bonito and tuna. Tourism focuses on Fuji, the Izu Peninsula and the hot springs.