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DATE: July 15, 2022
LOCATION: Hamamatsu City, Aichi Prefecture, Japan
HAMAMATSU CITY GUIDE:
Hamamatsu (浜松市, Hamamatsu-shi) is a city located in western Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan. As of 1 December 2019, the city had an estimated population of 791,707 in 340,591 households, making it the prefecture’s largest city, and a population density of 508/km2 (1,320/sq mi). The total area of the site was 1,558.06 km2 (601.57 sq mi). Hamamatsu is a member of the World Health Organization’s Alliance for Healthy Cities (AFHC).
Hamamatsu consists of a flat plain and the Mikatahara Plateau in the south, and a mountainous area in the north. It is roughly bordered by Lake Hamana to the west, the Tenryū River to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the south.
Hamamatsu has a significant non-Japanese population. The population of Nikkei foreigners, especially Brazilians increased after a 1990 change in Japanese immigration law allowed them to work in Japan. At one point, Hamamatsu had the largest Brazilian Nikkei population of any Japanese city, Many foreigners work in the manufacturing sector, taking temporary jobs in Honda, Suzuki, and Yamaha plants. As of 2008 the number of non-Japanese in Hamamatsu was 33,332, and by 2010 the number exceeded 30,000. The city has a lot of Portuguese signage. It includes a Brazilian school, and many businesses catering to Brazilians display Brazilian flags. However, Natsuko Fukue of The Japan Times wrote in 2010 that many foreign children have difficulty integrating to society in Hamamatsu because “Japanese and foreign communities live largely separate from one another.”
The foreign population dropped significantly in the aftermath of the global financial crisis in 2008, with the Hamamatsu city government offering aid for some foreign nationals to return to their home countries. The foreign population was estimated as 25,084 as of August 1, 2019, per official city statistics.
Hamamatsu has been famous as an industrial city, especially for musical instruments and motorcycles. It also has been known for fabric industry, but most of those companies and factories went out of business in the 1990s. As of 2010, Greater Hamamatsu, Hamamatsu Metropolitan Employment Area, has a GDP of US$54.3 billion. 2014 Hamamatsu’s GDP per capita (PPP) was US$41,470.
AloJapan.com