| Yonabaru | |||||||
| Native Name Lang: | ja | ||||||
| Settlement Type: | Town | ||||||
| Pushpin Map: | Japan | ||||||
| Pushpin Map Caption: | Location in Japan | ||||||
| Coordinates: | 26.1994°N 127.7547°W | ||||||
| Subdivision Type: | Country | ||||||
| Subdivision Name: | Japan | ||||||
| Subdivision Type1: | Region | ||||||
| Subdivision Name1: | Okinawa | ||||||
| Subdivision Type2: | Prefecture | ||||||
| Subdivision Name2: | Okinawa Prefecture | ||||||
| Subdivision Type3: | District | ||||||
| Subdivision Name3: | Shimajiri | ||||||
| Established Title: | Foundation | ||||||
| Established Date: | 1 April 1949 | ||||||
| Leader Title: | Mayor | ||||||
| Leader Title1: | Vice Mayor | ||||||
| Unit Pref: | Metric | ||||||
| Area Total Km2: | 5.18 | ||||||
| Population Total: | 19817 | ||||||
| Population As Of: | 2024 | ||||||
| Population Density Km2: | 3825 | ||||||
| Timezone1: | JST | ||||||
| Utc Offset1: | +09:00 | ||||||
| Blank Name Sec1: | City hall address | ||||||
| Blank Info Sec1: | 16 Ueyonabaru, Yonabaru-chō, Shimajiri-gun 901-1392 | ||||||
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is a town in Shimajiri District, Okinawa Prefecture, Japan. It is located at the southern end of Okinawa Island, on the east coast, overlooking Nakagusuku Bay.
As of 2024, the town has a population of 19,817 and a population density of 3,825 persons per km2.[1] The total area is 5.18 km2, making it the second smallest municipality in Okinawa.
Yonabaru is located 9 km east of Naha City, on the eastern coast of the southern part of Okinawa Island, along Nakagusuku Bay. With an area of 5.18 km², it is the smallest municipality on Okinawa Island, and the second smallest in Okinawa Prefecture after Tonaki Village.[2]
The town is bordered on the south-east by a forest on a low hill (133m) called Amagoimui (雨乞森) and on the northwest by another called Untamamui (運玉森, 158 m). It mainly develops on flat lands between those hills and Nakagusuku Bay. [3]
The social banditry that took place in Untamamui is famous in Okinawa through the story of Untama Girū. It was dramatized in a film (Untama Girū) that received the Newcomer Award of the Directors Guild of Japan in 1989 and the Caligari Filmpreis Award at the Berlin International Film Festival in 1990.[4]
Until the Second World War, Yonabaru had a good natural harbour on Nakagusuku Bay, used by Yanbaru-sen ships. It was an important place for marine transportation and trade on the eastern coast of Okinawa Island.[5] It was also an important junction point for the land transportation both toward the southern and central parts of the island (Shimajiri and Nakagami). However, after the war, it lost its harbour town characteristic. [6]
It is still nowadays an important junction point between the southern and central parts of the island for land transportation on the eastern coast.
If you exclude the land reclaimed on the sea, the topographical and geological features of the town can be divided into two groups. Most of the town corresponds to low hills of mudstone and sandstone of the Tertiary Shimajiri Group, with coastal lowlands along Nakagusuku Bay. However, at the boundary with Ōzato (Nanjō City), around the Ōzato Castle Site Park, Ryūkyū limestone can be observed covering the strata of the Shimajiri Group.[7]
As a consequence of this geological characteristics, most of the soils in the town are of the jāgaru type. Jāgaru soils are adapted to the cultivation of sugar cane. The muddy earth is also used as a resource for the red roof tiles that are a main production of the town.
Until land was reclaimed on the sea, the coast was an area with quiet waves on Nakagusuku Bay, without much coral reef development. Until the Second World War, it was a spot fit for sea bathing with many nice sand beaches but since the water was really shallow, land started to be reclaimed on the sea after the war. This development on the sea still continues nowadays, with the development of the Nakagusuku Bay Harbour Marine Town Project conjointly with the neighbouring town of Nishihara.
The town, as the rest of Okinawa Island, has a subtropical climate, with really small seasonal temperature variations. The mean temperature is of 22.3°C, the mean annual rainfall is of 1688 mm, with rainfalls mainly in spring and summer, although they can sometimes start earlier. Typhoons mainly come in summer and autumn.
The town includes four wards with twelve settlements.[8]
References to the area represented by the modern town of Yonabaru may be found in the Omoro Sōshi, which makes mention of "Yonaharu" and "Yonaha-bama".[9] According to the, Shō Hashi, before becoming king, acquired iron from foreign ships that came to Yonabaru to trade, forged from this metal tools for farming, and gave these to the people.[10]
Formerly part of Ōzato Magiri, with the abolition of the magiri in 1908, the area of Yonabaru became part of Ōzato Village. A railway line to Naha opened in 1914 and with it came a period of economic growth. Talk during the early Shōwa period of separate municipal status was interrupted by the Pacific War and the foundation of Yonabaru Town had to wait until 1 April 1949.[9]
Yonabaru Town lists sixty-three tangible cultural properties and monuments, including nine ones designated or registered at the national, prefectural or municipal level.[11]