Yao, Osaka

Yao is a city in Osaka Prefecture, Japan, adjacent to the central part of the Osaka Plain and southeast of the city of Osaka. The western side of the city is almost flat, averaging only about ten meters above sea level, while the land rises in the east where the Ikoma Mountains form the border with Nara Prefecture, and the Yamato River flows along its southern end. The area lies on land that was once Kawachi Bay, a fertile delta cultivated since the Yayoi period, with powerful clans building kofun burial mounds in the foothills during the Kofun period. Yao is the birthplace of the Kawachi ondo style of folk singing, and its population grew rapidly from the 1960s through the 1970s before leveling off.