Sado (island)
| Sado | ||
|---|---|---|
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| Waters | Japanese sea | |
| Geographical location | 38 ° 1 ′ N , 138 ° 22 ′ E | |
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| length | 63.4 km | |
| width | 27 km | |
| surface | 854.76 km² | |
| Highest elevation | Kinpoku-san 1172 m |
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| Residents | 60,649 (July 1, 2012) 71 inhabitants / km² |
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| main place | Sado (Aikawa) | |
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Sado ( Japanese 佐渡 島 , Sado-ga-shima or Sado-shima ) is a Japanese island off the west coast of Honshū .
Location and structure
It is located about 60 km northwest of the city of Niigata in Niigata prefecture in the Sea of Japan . With an area of 854.76 km² it roughly corresponds to the size of the island of Rügen . The landscape is shaped by volcanism . The highest mountain, Kinpoku-san ( 金 北山 , "Goldnordberg"), is 1172 m high.
The population is around 70,000, but almost one million tourists visit the island every year. The entire island belongs to the area of the city of the same name, Sado . The internationally known Taiko drum group Kodō comes from Ogi in the south of the island.
Historical
For centuries the island was a refuge and place of exile for politically persecuted people, including the Emperor Juntoku , the priest Nichiren and the priest Zeami , one of the founders of today's Noh theater .
It had been known since the 12th century that gold and silver could be found on the island. However, mining only began in 1601 with the opening of the Aikawa mines (相 川 鉱 山). In 1603 Tokugawa appointed Ieyasu Ōkubo Nagayasu as the first commissioner for Sado (佐渡 奉行; Sado bugyō), under whose direction gold mining took off. Between 1618 and 1627, between 66 and 100 tons of gold and silver ore were mined annually, making the mines an important source of income for the shogunate. However, water ingress hindered ore extraction and the pits were exhausted after 1700. After all, almost only silver was won.
The workers were forced to work hard under the supervision of the samurai . For this reason, the island was not only called Gold Island , but also Death Island , because most of the workers who were prisoners of war and convicts died because of the extremely harsh working conditions.
After the Meiji Restoration in 1868, the mines fell to the state, which left them to the Mitsubishi Group in 1868 . Mining eventually stopped and the pits are now a tourist attraction.
A Buddhist memorial stone was erected on Sado for the nameless workers, to commemorate the nameless workers. Even today people pray to the gods in the hope that they will forgive the slave labor and the gold robbery on the island. A split mountain still indicates the open pit mine.
Others
- Women and children used barrel-shaped structures to move about in the sea near the coast.
- "Okesa" is the name of the typical Sado traditional group dance performed by men, which is still practiced. Akira Miyoshi composed choral music for it in 1973.
- Bashō wrote one of his most famous haiku, "Stormy seas / across Sado extending / the Milky Way" ( 「荒 海 や / 佐渡 に 横 た ふ / 天 の 河」 ).
literature
- Niigata-ken no rekishi sampo henshu iinkai (Ed.): Sado . In: Niigata-ken no rekishi sampo. Yamakawa Shuppan, 2009. ISBN 978-4-634-24615-7 . Pages 227 to 262.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ 島 面積 . (PDF; 136 kB) (No longer available online.) Kokudo Chiriin , October 1, 2015, archived from the original on June 15, 2016 ; Retrieved August 2, 2016 (Japanese). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Kodo drummers on Sado Island. In: DasErste.de. January 1, 2016, archived from the original on July 14, 2007 ; accessed on August 2, 2016 .
- ↑ S. Noma (Ed.): Sado mines . In: Japan. An Illustrated Encyclopedia. Kodansha, 1993, ISBN 4-06-205938-X , p. 1290.
- ↑ Schliemann's gold. In: phoenix.de. Archived from the original on September 12, 2012 ; accessed on August 2, 2016 .
