Japan · Kagoshima-ken · Kagoshima
Usuki, Kagoshima — Area Guide & Where to Stay
Usuki is a district of Kagoshima whose name is recorded from the Kamakura period, when it lay in Taniyama county of Satsuma province.
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Where to stay in Usuki
The practical side of choosing where to sleep.
The name is hard to read even in Japanese. Usuki is written Usuki and listed among the difficult place names in the Heibonsha historical place-name series of 1998 and in the Tokyodo dictionary of difficult place names of 1993. Its meaning is disputed.
One account in the Kagoshima city history and the Usuki local record derives it from the Ainu words for a bay and a place. Land readjustment has reshaped it.
About Usuki
What are the main landmarks in Usuki?
Documents are what survive from the old district. The Taniyama county land register of 1272 records the reading usuku, and Yamada Tadamasa's younger brother Tadahide styled himself Usuki Saburo. A transfer deed carries it again.
The Yamada document of 1276 in the Satsuma domain records writes taniyama no kohori no uchi usuku no ko, transferring the holding from Yamada Tadamasa to Naohisa. Naohisa became its jito. He took the post of land steward of Usuki village on that transfer.
What is the history of Usuki?
The name appears from the Kamakura period. Usuki lay within Taniyama county in Satsuma province, and the Kagoshima prefecture gazetteer gives the reading ushiku for it. A land register fixes it in 1272.
The Taniyama county register of temple and shrine fields that year writes the name as usuku, and the younger brother of the Taniyama land steward Yamada Tadamasa styled himself Usuki Saburo. A transfer deed follows in 1276. The Yamada document of that year, preserved in the Satsuma domain records, transfers the Usuki holding in Taniyama county from Yamada Tadamasa to Naohisa, who became land steward of Usuki village.
Its etymology is unsettled. One reading derives Usuki from Ainu words for a bay and a place, and the name is difficult enough to be listed in two separate dictionaries of hard-to-read Japanese place names.
Where is Usuki?
Usuki lies in Kagoshima on ground that belonged to Taniyama county of Satsuma province, crossed by rivers and reshaped by land readjustment work.
More areas in Kagoshima
Updated September 2026