Where to Stay in Iwata, Shizuoka

What is Iwata known for?

Iwata is widely known as the headquarters of the Yamaha Motor Corporation, and the football club Júbilo Iwata plays under a name that has travelled a good deal further than the town itself. Rugby has a team as well. Yamaha Jubilo carries that side, and the Yamaha Communication Plaza attaches the same company name to a building that visitors can walk into.

What are the main landmarks in Iwata?

The kofun come in groups. Kawarakezuka Kofun, the Mikuriya Kofun Group, the Yonezuka Kofun Cluster, the Shinpōinyama Kofun group and Ichinotani Tomb Group Site make burial ground the largest single category on the city's list. Buildings fill the rest.

Tōtōmi Kokubun-ji Temple, the Mitsuke School, the Former Kaketsuka Post Office, Former Akamatsu Family Memorial Hall and Iwata Bunko cover the older civic ground, while Yamaha Communication Plaza, Yumeria and The Museum of Fragrance, Iwata belong to the modern city.

What is the history of Iwata?

Burial ground came first. Kawarakezuka Kofun, the Mikuriya Kofun Group, the Yonezuka Kofun Cluster and the Shinpōinyama Kofun group all predate any town here, and Ichinotani Tomb Group Site adds another excavated cemetery to the same long record. Then came the province.

Tōtōmi Kokubun-ji Temple carries the name of Tōtōmi, the province whose name attached to this ground long before the modern prefecture did. Civic buildings followed in their turn, with the Mitsuke School, Former Akamatsu Family Memorial Hall and the Former Kaketsuka Post Office all surviving from the era that gave Iwata its shape as a town. Iwata Town was the older name.

The modern municipality dates from 1940, and the decades since have been dominated by one company rather than by any administration. Yamaha Motor Corporation set up its headquarters here. That single fact explains the Yamaha Communication Plaza, the rugby side called Yamaha Jubilo and a good part of the reason Iwata is known outside Shizuoka Prefecture at all.

Football did the rest. Júbilo Iwata put the city's name into the top division of Japanese football, which is how a place of burial mounds and a motor company ended up on the sports pages.

Where is Iwata?

Iwata lies in Shizuoka Prefecture. The municipality covers enough ground to hold four separate kofun groups, a temple carrying an old province's name and the headquarters that made the city an industrial address, all without any of them crowding the others. Subtropical is the label it carries.

Warm air and a long growing season come with that classification, and the kofun ground sits under it as much as the football pitches do.

What is the climate of Iwata?

Heat settles in for a long stretch. A subtropical band covers Iwata, which gives the city hot and humid months at one end of the year and a mild rather than severe cold at the other. Sport works around it.

Júbilo Iwata and Yamaha Jubilo run their seasons through that calendar, while Yamaha Communication Plaza and The Museum of Fragrance, Iwata are indifferent to what the sky does.

How do you get to Iwata?

Arrivals split by purpose. Business travel comes for the Yamaha Motor Corporation, supporters come for Júbilo Iwata or Yamaha Jubilo, and a smaller number come for the kofun and Tōtōmi Kokubun-ji Temple. The city sits inside Shizuoka Prefecture, on the same stretch of country as the prefecture's larger cities.

A car helps once the mounds are on the list. The Mikuriya Kofun Group, the Yonezuka Kofun Cluster and the Shinpōinyama Kofun group are not walking distance from one another, and a day spent on them is a driving day.