Hirado, Nagasaki
Hirado (平戸市, Hirado-shi) is a city located in Nagasaki Prefecture, Japan. The part historically named Hirado is located on Hirado Island. With recent mergers, the city's boundaries have expanded, and Hirado now occupies parts of the main island of Kyushu. The components are connected by the Hirado Bridge. As of March 1, 2017, the city has an estimated population of 31,192 and a population density of 130 persons per km2. The total area is 235.63 km2 (91 square miles).
Hirado 平戸市 | |
|---|---|
Hirado City Hall | |
Flag Emblem | |
Location of Hirado in Nagasaki Prefecture | |
Hirado Location in Japan | |
| Coordinates: 33°22′N 129°33′E / 33.367°N 129.550°E | |
| Country | Japan |
| Region | Kyushu |
| Prefecture | Nagasaki Prefecture |
| Government | |
| • Mayor | Naruhiko Kuroda (since October 2009) |
| Area | |
| • Total | 235.63 km2 (90.98 sq mi) |
| Population (March 1, 2017) | |
| • Total | 31,192 |
| • Density | 130/km2 (340/sq mi) |
| Time zone | UTC+09:00 (JST) |
| City hall address | 1508-3 Iwanoue, Hirado-shi, Nagasaki-ken 859-5192 |
| Climate | Cfa |
| Website | www |
| Symbols | |
| Flower | Hirado Rhododendron |
| Tree | Podocarpaceae |
History edit
Hirado has been a port of call for ships between the East Asian mainland and Japan since the Nara period. During the Kamakura and Muromachi periods, the local Matsuura clan held the rights to trade with Korea and with Song-dynasty China. During the Sengoku and early Edo periods, Hirado's role as a center of foreign trade increased, especially vis-à-vis Ming-dynasty China and the Dutch East India Company (Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie or VOC). The Portuguese arrived in Japan in 1543; after the Battle of Fukuda Bay in 1561 the Portuguese stayed for a few more years until they settled in the city of Nagasaki in 1571. The English and Dutch initially reached Japan at the beginning of the 17th century.
The first step in the profitable Dutch-Japanese trading relationship was the Shōgun's grant of a trading pass (handelspas) in 1609.[1]
In 1613, the British ship Clove arrived in Japan and its Captain John Saris was able to gain the shogunate's permission to establish in Hirado a commercial house of the British East India Company. However, the company soon came to consider this outpost to be unprofitable, especially due to their inability to obtain Japanese raw silk for import to China. Therefore, the British closed their factory in 1623, voluntarily leaving the Dutch as the sole European presence.[2]
At its maximum extent, the Dutch trading center covered the whole area of present-day Sakikata Park.[3] In 1637 and in 1639, stone warehouses were constructed, and the Dutch builders incorporated these dates into the stonework. However, the Tokugawa shogunate disapproved of the use of any Christian year dates, and therefore demanded the immediate destruction of these two structures.[4] This failure to comply with strict sakoku practices was then used as one of the Shogunate's rationales for forcing the Dutch traders to abandon Hirado for the more constricting confines of Dejima, a small artificial island in the present-day city of Nagasaki.[4] The last VOC Opperhoofd or Kapitan at Hirado and the first one at Dejima was François Caron, who oversaw the transfer in 1641.[5][6] However, modern research indicated that this incident might actually have been an excuse for the Shogunate to take the Dutch trade away from the Hirado clan.[4] The stone warehouse from 1639 that was torn down was reconstructed back to its original form in 2011.[7]
During the Edo period, Hirado was the seat of the Hirado Domain. Hirado Castle is today a historical and architectural landmark.
The island was the namesake of IJN cruiser Hirado.
The modern city was founded on January 1, 1955. The city expanded by merging on October 1, 2005, with the neighboring towns of Tabira, Ikitsuki, and the village of Ōshima. The local economy is dominated by agriculture, fishing and food processing.
Climate edit
Hirado has a humid subtropical climate (Köppen:Cfa) with hot summers and cool winters. Precipitation is significant throughout the year, but is much higher in the summer, although the relatively low latitude and its coastal location the city receives snow in small quantities but enough to "mark" the winter every year despite being in 33 ° N receives intrusions from the Arctic cold of the Siberia air combined with the humidity of the Sea of Japan.[8]
| Climate data for Hirado (1991−2020 normals, extremes 1940−present) | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Month | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Year |
| Record high °C (°F) | 18.7 (65.7) | 20.4 (68.7) | 22.3 (72.1) | 25.7 (78.3) | 29.3 (84.7) | 30.7 (87.3) | 34.4 (93.9) | 35.1 (95.2) | 33.6 (92.5) | 30.1 (86.2) | 25.0 (77.0) | 23.1 (73.6) | 35.1 (95.2) |
| Mean daily maximum °C (°F) | 9.6 (49.3) | 10.6 (51.1) | 13.5 (56.3) | 17.7 (63.9) | 21.6 (70.9) | 24.1 (75.4) | 27.8 (82.0) | 29.6 (85.3) | 26.3 (79.3) | 22.1 (71.8) | 17.2 (63.0) | 12.1 (53.8) | 19.3 (66.8) |
| Daily mean °C (°F) | 7.0 (44.6) | 7.6 (45.7) | 10.3 (50.5) | 14.2 (57.6) | 18.0 (64.4) | 21.1 (70.0) | 25.1 (77.2) | 26.5 (79.7) | 23.5 (74.3) | 19.2 (66.6) | 14.2 (57.6) | 9.3 (48.7) | 16.3 (61.4) |
| Mean daily minimum °C (°F) | 4.4 (39.9) | 4.7 (40.5) | 7.1 (44.8) | 11.0 (51.8) | 15.0 (59.0) | 18.9 (66.0) | 23.2 (73.8) | 24.2 (75.6) | 21.2 (70.2) | 16.4 (61.5) | 11.1 (52.0) | 6.4 (43.5) | 13.6 (56.6) |
| Record low °C (°F) | −5.7 (21.7) | −5.8 (21.6) | −4.0 (24.8) | 1.8 (35.2) | 7.3 (45.1) | 12.4 (54.3) | 16.1 (61.0) | 17.0 (62.6) | 13.6 (56.5) | 5.9 (42.6) | 1.7 (35.1) | −3.6 (25.5) | −5.8 (21.6) |
| Average precipitation mm (inches) | 84.9 (3.34) | 93.6 (3.69) | 148.7 (5.85) | 189.0 (7.44) | 198.4 (7.81) | 319.0 (12.56) | 345.7 (13.61) | 289.1 (11.38) | 223.5 (8.80) | 116.6 (4.59) | 112.3 (4.42) | 85.3 (3.36) | 2,206.1 (86.85) |
| Average snowfall cm (inches) | 0 (0) | 1 (0.4) | 0 (0) | 0 (0) | 0 (0) | 0 (0) | 0 (0) | 0 (0) | 0 (0) | 0 (0) | 0 (0) | 0 (0) | 1 (0.4) |
| Average rainy days | 8.6 | 8.3 | 9.9 | 9.6 | 8.8 | 12.1 | 11.9 | 9.9 | 9.6 | 6.7 | 8.1 | 8.0 | 111.5 |
| Average snowy days | 0 | 0.2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.1 | 0 | 0.3 |
| Average relative humidity (%) | 65 | 65 | 69 | 74 | 79 | 87 | 89 | 85 | 81 | 72 | 69 | 65 | 75 |
| Mean monthly sunshine hours | 94.0 | 115.8 | 157.7 | 179.0 | 194.3 | 125.3 | 146.9 | 196.7 | 158.9 | 174.6 | 132.8 | 104.6 | 1,780.6 |
| Source: Japan Meteorological Agency[9][10] | |||||||||||||
Notable residents edit
- William Adams (1564–1620): Miura Anjin (三浦按針: "the pilot of Miura"), an English navigator, was the model for the character of John Blackthorne in James Clavell's novel Shōgun (1975). Died in Hirado.
- Camillus Costanzo (1571–1622): Italian Jesuit martyr. Burnt alive in Hirado.[11]
- Willem Verstegen (1612–1659) :merchant of the Dutch East India Company
- Tagawa Matsu (1601–1646): wife of Zheng Zhilong, mother of Koxinga and Shichizaemon
- Zheng Zhilong (1604–1661): Chinese merchant and pirate, father of Koxinga
- Koxinga (1624–1662): hero in mainland China, Taiwan and Ming general. Born in Hirado.
- Shichizaemon: second son of Tagawa Matsu
- Inagaki Manjiro (1861–1908): Diplomat. Born in Hirado.
- Ryusaku Yanagimoto (1894–1942): captain of the Sōryū in the Imperial Japanese Navy during World War II
- Kazuya Maekawa (1968–): former football player and current coach
International relations edit
Twin towns – Sister cities edit
Hirado has one sister city in Japan and one sister city and one friendship city outside Japan.[12]
- Zentsūji, Kagawa, Japan (sister city)[12]
- Nan'an, Fujian, China (friendship city)[12]
- Noordwijk, South Holland, Netherlands (sister city)[13] (used to be with Noordwijkerhout, which lost its municipal status in 2019 when it merged with Noordwijk)
Gallery edit
This section contains an unencyclopedic or excessive gallery of images. |
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- Topographical map of the bay of Hirado in 1621
- View of Hirado bay from Hirado castle, 2006
- The Hirado Bridge connects the mainland city to the island. Built in 1977.
- Komyo Temple (foreground), Zuiun Temple (centre), and St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church.
- Hirado Dutch Trading Post
Notes edit
- ^ "Van hier tot Tokio. 400 jaar handel met Japan" [From here to Tokyo. 400 years of trade with Japan]. archive.is. 2009-08-29. Archived from the original on 2012-08-05. Retrieved 2021-06-21.
The first Dutch trading post is located in Hirado. In the Japanese fight against Christianity, the Shôgun decided thirty years later that the country should be protected from any foreign influence. Only the Dutch can stay on the isolated island of Deshima. Every year the main Dutch officials visit the Shôgun. They overload the Shôgun with the curiosities he ordered, such as horses, a pearl diver and Delft Blue porcelain. No effort is spared to please the Shôgun, all to preserve the trade monopoly.
- ^ Hayami, Akira (2015). Japan's Industrious Revolution: Economic and Social Transformations in the Early Modern Period. Springer. p. 49. ISBN 978-4-431-55142-3.
- ^ Edo-Tokyo Museum exhibition catalog. (2000). A Very Unique Collection of Historical Significance: The Kapitan (the Dutch Chief) Collection from the Edo Period – The Dutch Fascination with Japan, p.206.
- ^ a b c Edo-Tokyo Museum exhibition catalog, p. 207.
- ^ Caron lived in Japan from 1619 to 1641. A Collector's Guide to Books on Japan in English by Jozef Rogala, p.31 [1]
- ^ Asia in the Making of Europe, p.459
- ^ "Kuni shitei shiato 'hirado waran shoukan ato' fukugen kenzobutsu" Hirado Oranda Shokan
- ^ "Hirado Climate Normals 1961-1990". National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Retrieved January 6, 2013.
- ^ 観測史上1～10位の値（年間を通じての値）. JMA. Retrieved February 17, 2022.
- ^ 気象庁 / 平年値（年・月ごとの値）. JMA. Retrieved February 17, 2022.
- ^ Boero, Giuseppe. (1868) Les 205 martyrs du Japon, béatifiés par Pie IX en 1867, p. 249.
- ^ a b c . City of Hirado, Nagasaki Official Website. Archived from the original on 2012-02-12. Retrieved 2013-12-17.
- ^ "参加者を募集します（オランダ王国ノールトワイク市姉妹都市交流事業）｜HIRADOじかん情報｜文化・スポーツ｜長崎県 平戸市（ひらどし）ホームページ". www.city.hirado.nagasaki.jp. Retrieved 2020-09-25.
References edit
- de Winter, Michiel. (2006). "VOC in Japan: Betrekkingen tussen Hollanders en Japanners in de Edo-periode, tussen 1602-1795" ("VOC in Japan: Relations between the Dutch and Japanese in the Edo-period, between 1602-1795"). (in Dutch)
- Edo-Tokyo Museum exhibition catalog. (2000). A Very Unique Collection of Historical Significance: The Kapitan (the Dutch Chief) Collection from the Edo Period—The Dutch Fascination with Japan. Catalog of "400th Anniversary Exhibition Regarding Relations between Japan and the Netherlands", a joint-project of the Edo-Tokyo Museum, the City of Nagasaki, the National Museum of Ethnology, the National Natuurhistorisch Museum" and the National Herbarium of the Netherlands in Leiden, the Netherlands. Tokyo.
- Satow, Ernest Mason, ed. (1900). The Voyage of Captain John Saris to Japan, 1613. London: Hakluyt Society...Link to digitized version from the collection of the University of California
External links edit
- Hirado City official website
- The Dutch Trading Post in Hirado
- Hirado City Tourism Association
- Geographic data related to Hirado, Nagasaki at OpenStreetMap