Mito

Mito City Hall
Mito-shi ; 水戸市
Geographical location in Japan
Region :	Kanto
Prefecture :	Ibaraki
Coordinates :	36 ° 22 ' N , 140 ° 28' E Coordinates: 36 ° 21 '57 " N , 140 ° 28' 16" E
Basic data
Surface:	217.45 km²
Residents :	269,661 ; (October 1, 2019)
Population density :	1240 inhabitants per km²
Community key :	08201-5
Symbols
Flag / coat of arms:
Tree :	Ume
Flower :	Hagi shrub
Bird :	Motacilla alba lugens
town hall
Address :	Mito City Hall ; 1 - 4 - 1 , Chūō; Mito -shi ; Ibaraki 310-8610
Website URL:	http://www.mitoic.or.jp/en/index.html
Location Mitos in Ibaraki Prefecture

Mito ( Japanese 水戸市 , - shi ) is a city and the administrative seat of Ibaraki Prefecture on Honshū, the main island of Japan , about 140 km northeast of Tokyo . Mito is an important rail hub.

In addition to the University of Ibaraki , there is also a tobacco and textile industry here.

history

Mito was already a castle town in the Sengoku period . After Tokugawa Ieyasu had taken power in the country, he gave Mito as a fief in 1602 to his fifth son, then to the tenth, and finally in 1609 to the eleventh son Tokugawa Yorifusa ( 徳川頼房 ; 1603–1661), who was a member of the “Three honorable families ”( Gosanke ) and was therefore entitled to inheritance if the main line should die out. In fact, the last shogun came from the Mito family.

In 1841, Tokugawa Nariaki created an educational establishment under the name Kōdōkan , which, with a nationalist-Confucianist mind, developed the Mitogaku . Under the patronage of several feudal lords, it gave decisive intellectual impulses for the political theory of the time.

During the Second World War , the Mito-born 2nd Infantry Regiment of the Imperial Japanese Army was almost completely destroyed in the Battle of Peleliu . Out of about 3,000 regimental members only 34 survived. Towards the end of the war, on August 2, 1945, a bomb attack by B-29 took place , which destroyed three quarters of the city by fire.

The natural disaster of the Tōhoku earthquake on March 11, 2011 with the subsequent tsunami claimed seven deaths in Mito. 164 residential buildings were completely destroyed and 1,905 others were partially destroyed.

Attractions

The townscape includes the ramparts of the former Mito Castle with a park and the main Kōdōkan building.

Mito owns one of the " Three Famous Gardens of Japan ", the Kairaku-en .

The Art Tower Mito is part of the municipal art museum. Another art museum is the Museum of Modern Art Ibaraki with Japanese and Western art from the 19th and 20th centuries.