A district of fields and wooded hills, with eight towns and some forty villages.
| Location | Outside Nakamachi (about 2.65–5.2 km from the centre of the town) |
|---|---|
| Population | About 40,000 (about 2,500 in each of the eight towns, 300–400 in each of the forty or so villages) |
| Landscape | Higashi-no-Take (450 m), the North Lake, the northern forest, the western hills and reservoirs, the southern basin, the south-eastern lagoon, the south-western sand flats |
| Main facilities | Yamada Shōten, the Tree Hamlet, the Sacred Tree Canal, the old farmhouse houseboat |
Tasuji district is the district of fields and wooded hills outside Nakamachi. About 40,000 people live in its eight towns and some forty villages.
About 60 per cent of the land is forest, hills and small mountains, and the fields lie in the valleys and basins between them. The southern basin has more rice fields than anywhere else in the town.
Every Village Is Different
No two of the forty or so villages look alike. There is a village of thatched roofs along the shore of a pond, a village where blue springs rise from white sand, a village of low hills scattered among the rice fields, and many more.
Field Duty
The fields of Tasuji do not belong to particular households. The townspeople take turns looking after them, from planting the rice to harvesting it. For details, see Field duty(Japanese).
The Sand Flats
The sand flats in the south-west are land where the water drew back long ago when the course of a great canal changed. Some houses there are still waiting their turn to be restored.
Scenes from the district
