Note/Disclaimer: This is a post that is meant to give a quick overview of some of Saitama and not full detail of everything. Saitama is much like a state in the US with a rich past, present, and future to come. I can’t possibly cover everything and getting the tip of everything would be a book.
Name: Saitama
Island: Honshū
Population: 6,938,006
Capital: Saitama
Major Cities: Ageo, Asaka, Chichibu, Fujimi, Fujimino, Fukaya, Gyōda, Hannō, Hanyū, Hasuda, Hatogaya, Hidaka, Higashimatsuyama, Honjō, Iruma, Kasukabe, Kawagoe, Kawaguchi, Kazo, Kitamoto, Kōnosu, Koshigaya, Kuki, Kumagaya, Misato, Niiza, Okegawa, Saitama, Sakado, Satte, Sayama, Shiki, Sōka, Toda, Tokorozawa, Tsurugashima, Wakō, Warabi, Yashio, Yoshikawa
History
Historically the Saitama land was very fertial and allowed for lots of farming to help provide a majority of the food for the kanto region. However, recently with the growth of Tokyo Siatama has become more of a suburb of Tokyo, but is a major player in that they have several connections directly to downtown Tokyo which helps them. The population has tripled since 1960 for this reason.
Culture
Chichibu Night Festival This festival is held by Chichibu Shrine annually on 2 December and 3 December, and has been held for more than 300 years. It is famous for the parade of six traditional wooden floats , and is counted as one of the three big traditional float festivals in Japan.
Kobaton is the prefectural mascot, a Eurasian collared dove, which is also the prefectural bird. Kobaton was made originally as the mascot of the fifty- ninth annual national athletic meeting held in the prefecture in 2004, and was inaugurated as mascot of the prefecture in 2005 with an inauguration ceremony and a letter of appointment from the governor. A wheelchair-using version of Kobaton also exists.
Climate
The prefectures has a fairly stable climate through out the year, but in some areas can get really hot. The temperature easily stays around the same level year round.
Interesting Facts
There is a John Lennon museum
Home to 6 Sports Teams
Saitama has 5 Sister Relationships
Note: this was a difficult prefecture to research because of its proximity to Tokyo makes finding good information difficult in the English speaking world. As I learn more Japanese i can come back and fill in this info with other posts with more detail.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Erm … Saitama City, the largest in the prefecture, didn’t make your list of cities.
I didn’t add it as a larger city as to me it was implied that it was since it was listed as the Capital. I’ll go ahead and add it though probably a good idea anyway.