The Location of Toyama City
Toyama City covers a large area spreading from the center of Toyama Prefecture to the southeast.
To the north, it faces Toyama Bay which abounds in fish, and to the east lies the magnificent 3,000-meter Tateyama Mountain Range which attracts many alpinists. There are hills to the west, and lush forests and paddy fields to the south. There are also a lot of rivers, large and small, running through the city, forming cultural blocs along them. All of those create first-class natural beauty.
The History of Toyama
The Toyama Plain is good farmland and historically it was a point of strategic and traffic importance. During the feudal age, it was frequently turned into a battlefield. Toward the end of the period of confusion, Sassa Narimasa became the governor of Etchuu, (the ancient name for present Toyama), and he accomplished the feat of taming the rampaging rivers, bringing about an even more flourishing agricultural industry here in Toyama. In the early Edo Period, a positive industrial promotion policy was implemented on the production of medicine and Japanese paper. Also, thanks to the improvement of both land and sea transportation routes, these industries thrived and Toyama became known nation-wide as the province of medicine.
After the Meiji Restoration, heavy and chemical industries developed in Toyama, based on abundant electricity which was generated in some hydro power stations in the mountains near-by. Although the streets of Toyama were devastated by an air raid in August 1945, Toyama has become one of the most influential cities on the Japan Sea side with its good water supply, drainage system and thriving agricultural, forestry, fishery, commercial and manufacturing industries. In 1996, it was designated as a “core city ” and in April 2005, Toyama City and its six neighboring towns and villages were incorporated into the new “Toyama City”
The Industries in Toyama
Traditionally, the city has been well-known for medicine, but more recently it is making efforts to nurture some new industries concerning environmental preservation, biology and information technology. At the same time, it promotes tourism, making the most of its tourist spots such as Yatsuo which is famous nation-wide for its Owara Folk Dance and Tateyama Mountain Range, etc. In anticipation of the opening of the Hokuriku Shinkansen line to Toyama in 2013, the city has been developing the area around Toyama Station and the city center, implementing various enterprises unique to Toyama in cooperation with the citizens of Toyama
