Shizuoka Prefecture was established from the former Tōtōmi, Suruga and Izu provinces.[4]
The area was the home of the first Tokugawa shōgun.[citation needed]Tokugawa Ieyasu held the region until he conquered the lands of the Hōjō clan in the Kantō region and placed land under the stewardship of Toyotomi Hideyoshi. After becoming shōgun, Tokugawa took the land back for his family and put the area around modern-day Shizuoka City under the direct supervision of the shogunate. With the creation of the Shizuoka han from the Sunpu Domain in 1868, it once again became the residence of the Tokugawa family.
Geography
Shizuoka Prefecture is an elongated region following the coast of the Pacific Ocean at the Suruga Bay. In the west, the prefecture extends deep into the Japan Alps. In the east, it becomes a narrower coast bounded in the north by Mount Fuji, until it comes to the Izu Peninsula, a popular resort area pointing south into the Pacific.[citation needed]
In Shizuoka prefecture, the temperature, over the course of the year, typically varies from 34 °F to 87 °F and is rarely below 28 °F or above 93 °F. The summers in Shizuoka are warm, oppressive, and mostly cloudy; the winters are very cold, windy, and mostly clear.[6]
Disaster
On 15 March 2011, Shizuoka Prefecture was hit with a magnitude 6.2 earthquake approximately 42 km (26 mi) NNE of Shizuoka City. It is said, that throughout history, Shizuoka area has experienced a large earthquake every 100 to 150 years.
After the introduction of modern municipalities in 1889, Shizuoka consisted of 337 municipalities: 1 (by definition: district-independent) city and 23 districts with 31 towns and 305 villages. The Great Shōwa mergers of the 1950s reduced the total from 281 to 97 between 1953 and 1960, including 18 cities by then. The Great Heisei mergers of the 2000s combined the 74 remaining municipalities in the year 2000 into the current 35 by 2010.
Shizuoka-based companies are world leaders in several major industrial sectors. Honda, Yamaha, and Suzuki all have their roots in Shizuoka prefecture and are still manufacturing here. Thanks to this, Shizuoka pref. accounts for 28% of Japanese motorcycleexports.[8]
Musical instruments
Yamaha and Kawai are both global piano brands. Yamaha has the largest share in the global piano market. Kawai has the second largest share. They both got their start in Shizuoka pref. in the early twentieth century.[8][9]
Yamaha and Roland are major brand for electronic musical instruments. In the electronic piano world market, Yamaha has the world's largest share. Roland and Kawai have the second and third place share. Roland and Yamaha also manufacture high-quality synthesizers and drum machines for professional musicians.
In addition, various instruments such as wind instruments and guitars are manufactured in this prefecture. There are about 200 companies that manufacture musical instruments, in this prefecture.
Most of these musical instruments are especially produced in Hamamatsu City.[9]
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