Ōmihachiman


Ōmihachiman is a city located in Shiga Prefecture, Japan.
The city was founded on March 31, 1954. In the quinquennial census of 2010, it has a population of 81,730 and a population density of 1,062 persons per km². The total area is 76.97 km².
On March 21, 2010, the town of Azuchi was merged into Ōmihachiman.

Naming

"Ōmihachiman" means "Hachiman in Ōmi". When Hachiman Town became a city, there was the existing city of Yahata in Fukuoka Prefecture. In Japanese, "Hachiman" and "Yahata" are written with the same kanji, so "Ōmi" was added to avoid confusion. "Hachiman" is the Shinto god of war. His symbol is the dove.

History

Ōmihachiman had been a developed commercial town even since Toyotomi Hidetsugu built a castle and gathered many merchants in the last part of 16th century. Former merchant's residences and a canal used for transport are preserved in an old city area, designated a Preservation District for Groups of Traditional Buildings and an Important Cultural Landscape.
In 1905, an American architect William Merrell Vories came to Ōmihachiman as an English language teacher at commercial high school. Two years later he resigned the original work, but he remained in Ōmihachiman and spent most of his productive life here. He handed down western-style buildings, a pharmaceutical company, an educational foundation and a hospital to the city.

Education

Sister cities

Within Japan