Sakura, Chiba

Geography

Sakura is located in northeastern Chiba Prefecture on the Shimōsa Plateau. It is situated 40 kilometers northeast of the Tokyo and 15 kilometers from Narita International Airport. Chiba City, the prefectural capital, lies 15 kilometers southwest of Sakura. Lake Inba and the Inba Marsh form the northern city limits.

Neighboring municipalities

History

The area around Sakura has been inhabited since prehistory, and archaeologists have found numerous Kofun period burial tumuli in the area, along with the remains of a Hakuho period Buddhist temple. During the Kamakura and Muromachi periods, the area was controlled by the Chiba clan. During the Sengoku period, the Chiba clan fought the Satomi clan to the south, and the Late Hōjō clan to the west. After the defeat of the Chiba clan, the area came within the control of Tokugawa Ieyasu, who assigned one of his chief generals, Doi Toshikatsu to rebuild Chiba Castle and to rule over Sakura Domain as a daimyō. Doi rebuilt the area as a jōkamachi, or castle town, which became the largest castle town in the Bōsō region. Under the Tokugawa shogunate, Sakura Domain came to be ruled for most of the Edo period under the Hotta clan. In the Bakumatsu period the domain became a center for rangaku studies, centered on the Juntendō school of the doctor Taizen Satō (1804 – 1872). The Juntendō and other educational institutions in Sakura contributed greatly to the Meiji Restoration. After the abolition of Sakura Domain, the area eventually became part of Chiba Prefecture.

Sakura Town was one of several towns and villages created on April 1, 1889 under Inba District. On March 31, 1954, Sakura achieved city status through merger of the neighboring municipalities of Usui, Wada, Nego, Yadomi and Shizu.

Economy

Sakura is a regional commercial center and, due to its numerous train connections, a bedroom community for nearby Chiba and Tokyo.

Education

Railway

Highway

Local attractions

Sakura boasts a number of tourist attractions, including the large National Museum of Japanese History (http://www.rekihaku.ac.jp, phone 043-486-0123, address 117 Jonai-cho) located on the ruins of Sakura Castle in the Sakura Castle Park. Several samurai houses near the old castle are open to the public and are protected as Important Cultural Properties. Other sights of interest include the Tsukamoto Sword Museum, Sakura Museum of History and Folklore, Sakura City Museum of Art, and the Sakura Juntendo Memorial Building. Nearby is also the Kawamura Memorial Museum of Art. In 1994 on the 40th anniversary of the city’s foundation a Dutch windmill called De Liefde was erected by the Dutch millwright company "Verbij Hoogmade BV" on the south-eastern shore of Lake Inba as a landmark of Sakura Furusato Square. The mill serving as a polder mill is named after the first Dutch sailing ship which landed on the Japanese shore in 1600. It is the only windmill of this type in Japan (a so-called "ground-sailer", which means a windmill whose sails reach almost down to the ground.

Noted people from Sakura