Chatan, Okinawa


Chatan is a town located in Nakagami District, Okinawa Prefecture, Japan. As of October 2016 the town had an estimated population of 28,578 and the density of 2,100 per km². The total area of Chatan is. 53.5% of the land area of the town is covered by United States military bases.
WWW chatan.jp

Name

In Japanese 北谷 is pronounced "Kitatani", however current okinawan pronouciation is "Chatan". The oldest written record of the name is from a 1577 document issued by the Ryukyu king to local officials. It is written as “Kita-tan Okite.” The 1649 a map called "正保国絵図" submitted by the Satsuma domain to the Tokugawa shogunate states “Kita-tan Magiri”. In the Kagoshima dialect, “tan” indicates a valley. It is thought that after the kanji for “North Valley” was applied to “Kitatan,” the pronunciation evolved from “kitatan” to “kichatan” → ‘chichatan’ → “chatan.”
Phonological changes: kitatani → palatalization → kitʃatani → vowel deletion → ttʃatani → consonant deletion → tʃatan.

Geography

Chatan is located in the central part of Okinawa Island. The town sits on the western coast of the island on the East China Sea. The east of Chatan is hilly and made up of Okinawan limestone. The hills of the eastern part of the town give way to low-lying land towards the coast.
Two rivers run through Chatan west into the East China Sea: the Shiruhi River to the north, and the Futenma River at the south.
Chatan, prior to World War II, was a noted area of rice production in Okinawa. The area was known as Chatan taa-bukkwa, a term in the Okinawa language for a "large area of rice paddies". Much of the land formerly used for rice cultivation is now utilized by military bases.
Chatan primarily runs along Route 58 and a largely man-made coastline which includes the area of what used to be the U.S. Marine Corps base of Camp Hamby. The northern half of Kitamae is nicknamed "Hamby Town" in recognition of this, and the Hamby Post Office is one of the first Japanese Postal offices to have an English name. Parts of Camp Foster and Camp Lester are in Chatan.
The American Kadena Air Base is located on and forms the northern boundary of Chatan which is further demarcated by Route 23 – also known locally as Kokutai Road. The U.S. air base also encompasses much land which was once part of Chatan's area including most of the ward once named Shimoseido.

Administrative divisions

The town includes sixteen wards.
  • Chatan
  • Hamagawa
  • Ihei
  • Kamiseido
  • Kitamae
  • Kuwae
  • Mihama
  • Minato
  • Miyagi
  • Ōmura
  • Shimoseido
  • Sunabe
  • Tamagami
  • Tōbaru
  • Ujibaru
  • Yoshihara
Kitamae, Mihama, and Sunabe enjoy great popularity among locals and tourists alike – for their many recreational and shopping destinations. Kamiseido, Ihei, and Kuwae are primarily local business and residential wards.

Neighboring municipalities

History

Palaeolithic

The town does not count any archaeological site dated of the Palaeolithic. Fossil human bones found in 1966 in Tōbaru Cave had first been dated of 16,000 yBP but recent surveys have attributed them to the Gusuku Period.

Kaizuka period

Chatan includes many sites from the Kaizuka period, dated as soon as the Early Kaizuka Phase I and for all the duration of the culture, with many sites of the Late Kaizuka Culture Phase I concentrating in the low lands of Hanzan and Kuwae. Important sites, in addition to Ireibaru, include
  • Sunabe Shellmound with a settlement at the top of the hill and the shell midden at the bottom,
  • Kumayā Cave with a cemetery of at least fifty individuals in secondary burials,
  • Kumuibaru with remains of barley, rice and foxtail millet dated of the 10th to 12th centuries,
  • Hanzanbaru B with an iron adze of the 10th century.

Gusuku period

Chatan includes many sites of the Gusuku period such as settlements with the characteristic association of residential buildings and raised-floor granaries or even one gusuku.

Early Kingdom Period

The oldest mention of the name of Chatan has been found on the dedicatory inscription on a funerary urn dated of 1492 where it is written in hiragana.
The name written with the current ideograms can be traced in historical documents back to the 16th century.

Kinsei Ryūkyū

Chatan Magiri figures on the 1649 "Map Villages Register" and includes the nine villages of Chatan, Kuwai, Hanzan, Sunahe, Noguni, Yara, Kadena, Yamauchi and Akina. Between 1660 and 1670, with a number of administrative reforms, the village of Yamauchi was reattributed to Goeku Magiri and Akina to Ginowan Magiri. New villages were also created: Tamēshi, Rindō, Irei, Hamagawa and Nosato.
By 1700, with the population rise in Shuri and the lack of administrative posts to give to all the members of the nobility, impoverished members of the nobility are authorised to practice agricultural activities, which leads to an exodus from the urban centre to the countryside and the creation of many new settlements called ‘yādui’.
In 1840, the English ship Indian Oak wrecked on the shoals on Chatan coast and the sailors were rescued by the inhabitants who helped them build another ship to leave the island.

Kindai Ryūkyū

In 1908 a reform replaced the administrative divisions of the Ryūkyū Kingdom by Japanese ones and Chatan Magiri became Chatan Village. Chatan was heavily fortified during the war by the Japanese forces. Several tunnels of the Shirahi-gawa River Suicide Boat Secret Tunnel Complex are conserved on the cliff below Chatan Gusuku. The landscape was heavily modified after the war by the construction of the U.S. bases. In 1948, the northern part of Chatan was used to create Kadena Village. In 1980, Chatan Village became Chatan Town.

Economy

Shopping and recreation

Much of the Hamby area is home to the "Hamby Free Zone". Though the name is misleading due to romanization errors, it is a large flea market that is scattered over an area of several blocks, though much of the land it is on is constantly relocated or bought for expansion of businesses. With the expansion of shopping/recreational businesses in the Mihama area, Chatan has become one of the most popular destinations for recreation. It is home to a small convention center, several shopping plazas, arcades, karaoke parlors, a 25-story hotel named "The Beach Tower" and several beaches. Sunabe is famous for a large sea wall which attracts many SCUBA divers and surfers.
The Chunichi Dragons of Nippon Professional Baseball have their spring training camp in Chatan.

Education

The Town of Chatan maintains four elementary schools:,, Kitatama, and Hamagawa ; each elementary school has an associated nursery school. The town also maintains two junior high schools: Chatan Junior High School and .
, a prefectural senior high school of the Okinawa Prefectural Board of Education, is located directly north of the town hall.
Department of Defense Education Activity schools:
  • Killin Elementary School on Camp Lester
  • Zukeran Elementary School on Camp Foster
  • Kubasaki High School on Camp Foster

Transportation

Chatan is crossed from north to south by Japan National Route 58, which runs parallel to the coastal area of the town.
Delta Air Lines has a city ticket office in the Towa Building #1 in Chatan. Northwest Airlines previously operated a city ticket office in Chatan.

Cultural and natural assets

Chatan Town hosts eight designated or registered tangible cultural properties and monuments, at the national or municipal level.
  • Name

Cultural Properties

  • Chatan Uchinā-yā residence main house
  • Chatan Uchinā-yā residence pig pen latrines
  • Chibugā Spring

Folk Cultural Properties

Historic Sites