Onjuku

Onjuku is a small seaside town on the east coast of southern Chiba Prefecture, Japan, near the middle of the outer coast of the Boso Peninsula. Its landscape is made of rolling sandy hills, and its broad beaches, which lie inside Minami Boso Quasi-National Park, make it known as a beach resort. The town faces Ajiro Bay, where two ports operate, Iwawada to the north and Onjuku to the south, and the small Kiyomizu River runs through it into the bay. Onjuku sits about 50 kilometres from the prefectural capital at Chiba and 70 to 80 kilometres from central Tokyo. It became a village in 1889, was raised to town status in 1914 and grew by annexing parts of neighbouring villages in 1955. Its best known historical episode is the 1609 wreck of the Spanish galleon San Francisco, whose survivors, among them Rodrigo de Vivero, were cared for by the townspeople; a tower built in 1928 commemorates that landing and the friendship of Mexico, Spain and Japan.