Kenroku-en Landscape Garden in Kanazawa City, Ishikawa Prefecture. The pine trees are covered by the yukitsuri, preventing them from falling in winter when it snows heavily
Ishikawa is on the Sea of Japan coast. The northern part of the prefecture consists of the narrow Noto Peninsula, while the southern part is wider and consists mostly of mountains with the prefecture's chief city, Kanazawa, located in the coastal plain. The prefecture also has some islands, including Notojima, Mitsukejima, Hegurajima.
Ishikawa's industry is dominated by the textile industry, particularly artificial fabrics, and the machine industry, particularly construction machinery.
Demographics
Ishikawa prefecture population pyramid in 2020
Ishikawa Prefecture has an area of 4,186.09 km2 and, as of 1 April 2011[update], it has a population of 1,166,643 persons.[citation needed]
Data
Unit
Statistics
Area
km2
4,186.09
Population
Persons
1,166,643
Population density
Persons per km2
278.72
Number of households
Households
441,980
Income per person
Thousand yen
2,707
Power consumed
Kwh per household
6,446
Number of doctors
Physicians per
100,000 people
249
List of governors of Ishikawa Prefecture
Wakio Shibano (柴野和喜夫) (12 April 1947 to 23 February 1955)
Jūjitsu Taya (田谷充実) (24 February 1955 to 19 February 1963)
Kutani ware (Kutani yaki) is a bright colored glaze like Chinese porcelain.
Ohi teaware (Ōhi yaki) is a pottery with a style unique to Kanazawa.
Nyotaimori or naked sushi is said to have originated in Ishikawa Prefecture.
Kaga silk (Kaga yūzen) is made with complicated silk print technique with an intentional rough look (wabi-sabi).
Kanazawa lacquerware (Kanazawa shikki) is high quality lacquerware traditionally decorated with gold dust.
Kanazawa gold leaf (Kanazawa haku) is produced with a technique of beating gold into wafer-thin sheets.
Kaga mizuhiki is ribbon-like decoration made from glued Japanese paper (washi).
Kaga inlay crafts (Kaga zōgan) are made with a combination of thin flat and thread metal inlays.
Gojinjo Daiko is a Japanese drum, a Wajima city cultural heritage (since 1961) as well as an Ishikawa Prefecture intangible cultural heritage (since 1963).
Shirayone Senmaida, designated as a World Agricultural Heritage site in Wajima
The most popular destination in Ishikawa is Kanazawa. Tourists can get to Ishikawa by plane via either the Komatsu or Noto airports. Popular sites include:
Kyōka Izumi, author of novels, short stories, and kabuki plays, from Kanazawa.
Murō Saisei, poet and novelist in modern Japanese literature from Kanazawa.
Shūsei Tokuda, author from Kanazawa.（Izumi, Muro, and Tokuda are known as the Three Famous Literary Persons in Ishikawa[6]）
Takeshi Kaga, an actor in Japan who is probably best known internationally for his portrayal of Chairman Kaga in the Japanese television show Iron Chef produced by Fuji TV, is from Ishikawa.
Hideki Matsui, a former Yomiuri Giants and New York Yankees, was born and raised in Neagari Town (now Nomi City), Ishikawa. He gained fame as a baseball player while attending high school in Kanazawa.
Daisuke Nakata, a trampolinist who has competed in the Olympics in the past, is from Ishikawa.
The prefectural assembly building in the prefectural government building complex in Kanazawa
The current governor of Ishikawa is Hiroshi Hase who was first elected in 2022. He defeated six time incumbent Masanori Tanimoto.[7] Prior to his defeat, Tanimoto was one of two governors who were in their sixth term nationwide, the other being Masaru Hashimoto of Ibaraki. Hase is only the fifth governor of Ishikawa since 1947 when prefectural governors became elected offices, as Tanimoto had held the governorship for twenty eight years, first coming to office in 1994, succeeding Yōichi Nakanishi, who had serve from 1963 until his death in 1994.
The prefectural assembly of Ishikawa has 43 members and is elected in unified local elections (last round: 2011) in 15 SNTV electoral districts – six single-member, five two-member, one three-member, two four-member districts and the Kanazawa City district that elects 16 members. As of February 26, 2014, the LDP prefectural assembly caucus has 25 members and no other group has more than four members.[8]
In the National Diet, Ishikawa is represented by three directly elected members of the House of Representatives and two (one per election) of the House of Councillors. Additional members from the prefecture may be elected in the proportional representation segments of both houses: the Hokuriku-Shin'etsu proportional representation block in the lower house, the proportional election to the upper house is nationwide. After the Diet elections of 2010, 2012 and 2013, the five directly elected members from Ishikawa districts are all Liberal Democrats, namely:
in the House of Representatives
for the 1st district that covers Kanazawa City: Hiroshi Hase, LDP, 5th term,
for the 2nd district that consists of Southern parts of Ishikawa and had been the district of former LDP president Yoshirō Mori until 2012: Hajime Sasaki, LDP, 1st term,
for the 3rd district in the North: Shigeo Kitamura, LDP, 3rd term,
in the House of Councillors
in the class of 2010 (term ends 2016): Naoki Okada, LDP, 2nd term, and
in the class of 2013 (term ends 2019): Shūji Yamada, LDP, 1st term who was able to defeat Democratic incumbent and former defense minister Yasuo Ichikawa by a huge margin in 2013.
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