Itoigawa

Itoigawa is a city in the far southwestern corner of Niigata Prefecture, Japan, bordered by the Sea of Japan to the north and by Nagano and Toyama prefectures. It had an estimated 38,224 residents in 2024 across about 746 square kilometres and has been shrinking for seventy years. Parts of the city lie in the Chubu-Sangaku and Myoko-Togakushi Renzan national parks. It is famous for jade, found on local beaches, and sits at the end of the old salt road that carried salt to Edo, and it gives its name to the Itoigawa-Shizuoka Tectonic Line. Neolithic jadeite beads and workshops here belong to the oldest known jadeite using culture. The climate is humid subtropical with heavy snow, and the city reached its present form in 1954 and 2005.