 Gunma Prefecture (群馬県, Gunma-ken) - A
prefecture of Japan located in the northwest corner of the
Kantō region on Honshū island. Its capital is Maebashi.
One of only eight landlocked prefectures in Japan, Gunma is
the northwestern-most prefecture of the Kantō plain. Except
for the central and southeast areas, where most of the
population is concentrated, it is mostly mountainous. To the
north are Niigata and Fukushima prefectures, while to the
east lies Tochigi. To the west lies Nagano prefecture, and
Saitama is to the south.
Some of the major mountains in Gunma are Mount Akagi, Mount
Haruna, Mount Myogi, Mount Nikkō-Shirane and Mount Asama,
which is located on the Nagano border. Major rivers include
the Tone River, the Agatsuma River, and the Karasu River.
 The remains of a Paleolithic man were found at Iwajuku,
Gunma Prefecture, in the early 20th century and there is a
public museum there.
Japan was without horses until around the early centuries
AD, and present-day Gunma was a center of the horse breeding
and trading activities when continental peoples and Japanese
began a strong trade in the animals.
When Mt Haruna erupted in the late 6th century Japan was
still in pre-history, but the Gunma Prefectural archaeology
unit in 1994 was able to date the eruption through
zoological anthropology at the corral sites that were buried
in ash.
In the past, Gunma was joined with Tochigi Prefecture and
called Kenu Province. This was later divided into Kami-kenu
(Upper Kenu, Gunma) and Shimo-kenu (Lower Kenu, Tochigi).
The area is sometimes referred to as Jomo (上毛, Jōmō). For
most of Japanese history, Gunma was known as the province of
Kozuke.
In the early period of contact between western nations and
Japan, particularly the late Tokugawa, it was referred to by
foreigners as the "Joushu States", inside (fudai, or
loyalist) Tokugawa retainers and the Tokugawa family symbol
is widely seen at public buildings, temples and shrines.
The first modern silk factories were built with Italian and
French assistance at Annaka in the 1870s.
In the early Meiji period, a bloody political struggle
between idealistic democratic westernizers and conservative
Prussian-model nationalists took place in Gunma and
neighboring Nagano. This was locally called the Gunma
Incident of 1884. In it the modern Japanese army gunned down
the farmers with their new Japanese-built repeating rifles.
It is said that the farmers of Gunma were the first victims
of the Murata rifle.
In the twentieth century, the Japanese aviation pioneer
Nakajima Chikushi of Oizumi, Gunma Prefecture, founded
Nakajima Aircraft. At first he produced mostly licensed
models of foreign designs, but beginning with the famous
all- Japanese Nakajima 91 fighter plane of 1931 his firm
became a world leader in aeronautical design and
manufacture, with its headquarters at Ota, Gunma Ken. That
factory now produces Subaru motorcars and many other
industrial products under the Fuji Heavy Industries name.
In the 1930s, the great German architect Bruno Julius
Florian Taut (May 4, 1880, Königsberg, Germany - December
24, 1938, Istanbul) lived for a while and did research in
Takasaki, Gunma Ken.
The Girard Incident, which disturbed US-Japanese relations
in the 1950s, occurred in Gunma in 1957, at Somogahara Base
near Shibukawa. Gunma has produced four modern Prime
Ministers of Japan; Takeo Fukuda, Yasuhiro Nakasone, Keizo
Obuchi, and Yasuo Fukuda, the son of Takeo.
Twelve cities are located in Gunma Prefecture:
Annaka
Fujioka
Isesaki
Kiryū
Maebashi (capital)
Midori
Numata
Ōta
Shibukawa
Takasaki
Tatebayashi
Tomioka
Information source: “Gunma Prefecture.” wikipedia.org. Article
date: 1 Mar. 2008. Retrieved: Wikipedia. 4 Mar. 2008 <Gunma Prefecture>. |
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