Iwama, Ibaraki

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article or section may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards.
Please help improve this article or replace this tag with a more specific message. This article has been tagged since July 2006. (help, talk)

Iwama (岩間町; Iwama-machi) is a small town located in Nishi-ibaraki District, Ibaraki, Japan. Iwama is about 100 km North East of Tokyo and near the city of Mito. As of 2003, the town has an estimated population of 16,588 and a density of 332.23 persons per km². The total area is 49.93 km².

Iwama is known for being the residence of Morihei Ueshiba, founder of Aikido, from 1942 until his death. Students from around the world come to the dojo at Iwama to study Aikido as uchideshi under the many respected teachers in the area, foremost of which is Hitohiro Saito, the son of Ueshiba's disciple Morihiro Saito. Nearby the dojo is the Aiki Jinja, or aikido shrine built by the founder.

Iwama is at the base of Mt. Atago, or Atago-san. Atago-san is a part of a larger Prefectural Park that extends up toward Kasama. On top of Mt. Atago is a kids play area with a giant slide (about 150m in length) as well as the Atago shrine (or "jinja").

On March 19, 2006, Iwama joined with Tomobe to merge with Kasama to form the new city of Kasama.