Place:Tono, Kamihei, Iwate, Japan

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is a city in Iwate Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 26,378, and a population density of 31.6 persons per km² in 10,759 households. The total area of the city is . Tōno is known as "The City of Folklore" for its rural nature, its preservation of traditional culture and especially for the collection of folktales, Tōno Monogatari, written by Kunio Yanagita in 1910.

History

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

The area of present-day Tōno was part of ancient Mutsu Province, and has been settled since at least the Jōmon period. Pottery fragments can still be found in farmers' fields and other places. Later the area was inhabited by the Emishi and many place names are based on the Ainu language. In the Early Nine-Years War lasting from 1051 to 1063, Minamoto no Yoshiie fought running battles with Abe no Sadato throughout the area. There are references to this in "Tōno Monogatari" and arrowheads still turn up from time to time. Later the Hiraizumi Fujiwara controlled Tōno which was a prized area for horse breeding, farming and hunting.

During the Sengoku period, the area was dominated by various samurai clans before coming under the control of the Nambu clan during the Edo period, who ruled Morioka Domain under the Tokugawa shogunate. The Nambu built Nabekura Castle in what is now known as Nabekura Park in downtown Tōno as a defence against the powerful Date clan of Sendai Domain to then south, and assigned to Nanbu Naoyoshi, formerly castellan of Ne Castle near Hachinohe in 1627. This formed an unofficial subsidiary 12,500 koku domain of Morioka Domain, which lasted until the Meiji restoration.

With the Meiji period establishment of the modern municipalities system, the town of Tōno was established on April 1, 1889 within Nishihei District of Iwate Prefecture. In 1896, Nishihei and Minamihei districts were merged to form Kamihei District. During the Meiji period, Tōno developed a silk and cotton weaving industry dependent on Morioka. The silk industry was destroyed by intensely cold weather during the winter of 1905–06. The residents of Tōno were reduced to eating wild roots by the famine of this period and many died or moved away.

The city of Tōno was officially founded on December 1, 1954 by the merger of the former town of Tōno with the seven villages of Ayaori, Otomo, Tsukimoushi, Matsuzaki, Tsuchibuchi, Aozasa and Kamigo.^[1]

On October 1, 2005, the village of Miyamori (from Kamihei District) was merged into Tōno to bring the city to its present boundaries.

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