《最終更新日： Sept 15, 2023》
Sado Island/ Wikipedia
Sado Isalnd is located in the eastern part of the Sea of Japan.
The shortest distance between Sado Island and Honshu is 32 km (20 mi).
Sado is a city located on Sado Island in Niigata prefecture.
As of June 1, 2023, the city has an estimated population of 48,195.
The total area is 855.69 square kilometers.
The rule of the Honma clan on Sado lasted until Uesugi Kagekatsu took control of the island in 1589. After the defeat of the Uesugi at Sekigahara, and the discovery of gold on the island, the shogunate took direct control of the island.
The island was for a short time an independent prefecture, called the Aikawa prefecture, between 1871 and 1876, during the Meiji era. It then became a part of Niigata Prefecture, which it is still as of today.
Exile in Sado
When direct control from mainland Japan started around the 8th century, the island's remoteness meant that it soon became a place of banishment for difficult or inconvenient Japanese figures. Exile to remote locations such as Sado was a very serious punishment, second only to the death penalty, and people were not expected to return.
*exile=ｴｸﾞｻﾞｲる=追放、流刑、流刑者、～を追放する
The earliest known dissident to be condemned to exile on Sadogashima was a poet, Hozumi no Asomi Oyu (穂積朝臣老). He was sent to the island in 722, reportedly for having criticized the emperor.
*disident=ﾃﾞｨｽｨﾃﾞﾝﾄｩ=意見の違う人、反体制派の（人）
The former Emperor Juntoku (順徳上皇） was sent to Sado after his role in the Jōkyū War of 1221, while the former Emperor Gotoba, his father (後鳥羽上皇） sent to Okino-shima (隠岐の島、島根県）. . The disgraced emperor survived twenty years on the island before his death; and because he was sent to Sado, this emperor is known posthumously as Sado-no-in (佐渡院). He is buried in the Mano Goryo mausoleum on the west coast.
*エピソード：順徳院の句:「ももしきや古き軒端のしのぶにもなほ余りある昔なりけり（小倉百人一首）
The Buddhist monk Nichiren lived on Sado close to the present village Niibo in Kuninaka Plain from 1271 to 1274. In the 17th century, Konpon Ji Temple was built at the place where he lived. At the end of his exile, Nichiren lived at the place where Myosho Ji temple was built later. He used to meditate at the place where Jisso Ji Temple can be visited today. In addition, Nipponzan Myohoji, a modern Nichiren Buddhist order, established a Peace Pagoda in the city to help in inspiring people toward world peace.
The Noh dramatist Zeami Motokiyo was exiled on unspecified charges in 1434.
The last banishment in Sado took place in 1700, almost a millennium after the first.
Gold Mine
Sado experienced a sudden economic boom during the Edo period when gold was found in 1601 at Aikawa (相川). A major source of revenue for the Tokugawa shogunate, the mines were worked in very severe conditions.
A manpower shortage led to a second wave of "exiles" coming to Sado, although this time it was not imposed as a sentence for a committed crime. By sending homeless people (the number of whom was growing in Japanese cities at the time) to Sado from the 18th century, the Shogunate hoped to kill two birds with one stone. The homeless were sent as water collectors and worked in extremely hard conditions, with a short life expectancy. The Sado mine at its peak in the Edo era produced around 400 kilograms (1,100 troy pounds) of gold a year (as well as some silver). The small settlement of Aikawa quickly reached a population of around 100,000. The mine closed in 1989.
Geography
The island consists of two parallel mountain ranges running roughly southwest–northeast, enclosing a central plain.
The Ōsado (大佐渡) range, in the north, is slightly higher, with peaks of Mount Kinpoku (金北山), the highest point of the island at 1,172 metres (3,845 ft), Mount Kongō, Mount Myōken, and Mount Donden. Kosado (小佐渡) range in the south faces the Honshu coast. The highest point in Kosado is Ōjiyama (大地山) at 645 m.
The plain in between is called Kuninaka (国中) and is the most populated area. The Kuninaka plain opens on its eastern side onto Ryōtsu Bay (両津湾), and on its western side onto Mano Bay (真野湾), where the longest river, Kokufugawa (国府川, also read Konogawa) reaches the sea.
The island has a symmetrical shape. Lake Kamo (加茂湖, a brackish lake 汽水湖), on the eastern side of Kuninaka, is filled with salt water, and is a growing place for oysters.
Economy
As of May 1, 2017, the island has an estimated population of 55,474. The island of Sado has seen a steady decline in population since 1950 when the population was 125,597. Similar trends have been common in other remote locations of Japan since World War II as younger generations have moved to more urban areas. As of October 1, 2008, 36.3% of the island population is over 65 years old, which is a larger ratio than the national average. Over 65 is the only increasing age demographic. The island is now less populated than it was in the 18th and 19th century. There is no university, and the options for post high school studies, short of leaving and going to the mainland, are limited to a few specialty schools.
Tourism boomed in the beginning of the 1990s and peaked at over 1.2 million yearly visitors, but visitor numbers decreased over the 1990s. In the mid-2000s, the number of visitors was closer to 650,000 per year.
Sado is known for a number of Japanese bamboo weaving artists and artisans who are renowned throughout the country.
Tourism
Its rich history and relaxed rural atmosphere make Sado one of the major tourist destinations in Niigata Prefecture. The island has several temples and historical ruins, and offers possibilities for various outdoor activities, as well as fresh local food.
Sado is famous as the major breeding area for the Japanese crested ibis. The last known Japan-born Japanese crested ibis died in captivity in 2003 on the island. Currently, birds from China are being bred in a captive program in a facility in Niibo area, and have been released since 2008. The first hatchings in the wild were observed in April 2012. The ibis is a major symbol of the Island and can be found on several tourist items. As of June 2022, approximately 480 crested ibis have been observed making a radical comeback for their species, thanks to conservation efforts.
*crested=ｸﾚｽﾃｨｯﾄﾞｩ=とさかのある
* ibis=ｱｲﾋﾞｽ=トキ
Sado Mine
The Sado gold mine (佐渡金山, Sado Kinzan) is a generic term for gold and silver mines which were once located the island of Sado in Niigata Prefecture, Japan.
Among these mines, the Aikawa Gold and Silver Mine (相川金銀山, Aikawa kinginzan) was the largest and was in operation until the modern era. The Sado Gold and Silver Mine was inscribed on Japan's World Heritage Tentative List under the title "The Sado Complex of Heritage Mines, Primarily Gold Mines" in 2010.
History
The origins of mining on Sado are unknown; however, surface deposits of native gold and argentite in quartz substrate have been known since at least the Heian period. There is an anecdote in the Heian period Konjaku Monogatarishū mentioning that people go to Noto Province to dig iron, but they go to Sado Province if they want to dig gold. There is a popular mythology that the mines of Sado were the secret source of wealth for the Sengoku period warlord Uesugi Kenshin, which was widely popularized by the novelist Jirō Nitta; however, during this period, Sado was controlled by the Honma clan, and it was only after the Honma were defeated in 1589 by Kenshin's successor Uesugi Kagekatsu that the island and its mines came under the control of the Uesugi clan.
Following the establishment of the Tokugawa shogunate, the island became tenryō territory under the direct control of the Shogunate. This corresponded with the discovery of a new gold vein in 1601 in what would later become the Aikawa gold and silver mine. During its peak production period, from around 1615 to 1645, the mines on Sado produced an estimated 400 kilograms of gold and 37.5 tons of silver per year, making Sado one of the largest producers of gold and silver in the world, and forming a substantial portion of the income for the Tokugawa shogunate. During the early period, the mine workers were paid handsomely and the surrounding towns were prosperous. However, by the later half of the Edo period, extraction was becoming increasingly difficult due to water ingression from natural springs, and by the tunnels following veins of ore underneath the seabed. The shogunate supplemented the local workforce by bringing in convicted criminals and by rounding up indigents off of the streets of Edo. Conditions for these forced laborers was extremely harsh, as they were used for the most dangerous tasks and for the heavy labor involved in dewatering the mines, and a sentence to the Sado mines was a life sentence.
By the Meiji restoration, production had dropped considerably and the new Meiji government sold the mines to a consortium led by Mitsubishi in 1896. Using imported machinery and modern mining techniques, including cableways, vertical shafts and improved extraction technology, the Aikawa mine was able to increase production to 1500 kilograms of gold and 25 tons of silver annually by 1940. World War II severely impacted production, and forced labor from Korea was used.
Mining operations had been reduced by a large scale by 1952. The final mining operations were stopped on March 31, 1989.
