Sukagawa, Fukushima

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Country	Japan
Sukagawa City (須賀川市 (sukagawa-shi))
Prefecture	Fukushima
Established	March 31, 1954
Area
- City	279.55 km² (107.9 sq mi)
Population (February 2007)
- City	80,518
- Density	288/km² (745.9/sq mi)
Website: http://www.city.sukagawa.fukushima.jp/index.html

Sukagawa (須賀川市; -shi) is a city located in the center of Fukushima, Japan. It is famous for both its peony garden (Botan En), a national scenic beauty, and its great torch festival which has been hereditary for over 400 years.
Sukagawa is also known as the city which has turned out some prominent persons, such as below.

Eiji Tsuburaya
Kokichi Tsuburaya
Denzen Aōdō - Painter in late Edo period
Yuki Kadokura - Singer

1 History
2 Demographics
3 Transportation
4 External links

[edit] History

During Edo period, Sukagawa belonged to Shirakawa Han (country subdivision). It was prospering as a major lodging place on Ōshū Kaidō, which is one of the Edo Five Routes, and was the commercial center in the region.
But after mid-Meiji period, Koriyama, which had succeeded in inviting the junction of West Ban'etsu Line, took its presence.
The city was founded on March 31, 1954, by consolidation of Sukagawa town, Hamada town, Nishibukuro village and Inada village in Iwase district and Oshioe village in Ishikawa district. Then, it merged with Niida village in Iwase district on March 10, 1955, with Ohigashi village in Ishikawa district on February 1, 1967, and finally with Naganuma town and Iwase village in Iwase district on April 1, 2005.

[edit] Demographics

As of January 1, 2005.

Name of Area	Population(persons)	Surface(km²)	Population density(persons/km²)
Sukagawa	22,523	8.55	2634.27
Hamada	5,570	12.06	461.86
Nishibukuro	17,424	23.60	738.31
Inada	4,463	16.16	276.18
Oshioe	4,386	34.43	127.39
Niida	7,557	18.79	402.18
Ohigashi	6,049	41.39	146.15
Naganuma	6,639	60.34	106.98
Iwase	6,146	64.23	93.31
Total	80,757	279.55	288.88

[edit] Transportation

Sukagawa is connected to Japan thru Sukagawa Station (須賀川駅 sukagawa-eki) a railway station served by Tōhoku Main Line (東北本線 Tōhoku-honsen)

It is also the only city in the Fukushima prefecture that counts with an airport; Fukushima Airport (福島空港, Fukushima Kūkō) was opened in May 20, 1993 with regular domestic flights to Sapporo, Osaka, Fukuoka and Naha and international flights to Shanghai and Seoul.