Fukuroi

Fukuroi is a city on the coastal plain of southwestern Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan, with a small coastline on the Pacific Ocean to the south. In the Edo period it was land held directly by the Tokugawa shogunate and prospered as Fukuroi-juku, a post station on the Tokaido highway connecting Edo with Kyoto. It was elevated to city status on 3 November 1958 and enlarged by the merger of the town of Asaba in 2005. It hosted events of the 2002 FIFA World Cup at Shizuoka Stadium. The economy combines agriculture, chiefly green tea and melons, with light industry such as food processing, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, electronics and automotive components. Fukuroi has a mild maritime climate with hot humid summers and is a member of the World Health Organization Alliance for Healthy Cities.