is a city

Cities of Japan

||A is a local administrative unit in Japan. Cities are ranked on the same level as and , with the difference that they are not a component of...

 located in Miyagi Prefecture

Miyagi Prefecture

is a prefecture of Japan in the Tōhoku Region on Honshu island. The capital is Sendai.- History :Miyagi Prefecture was formerly part of the province of Mutsu. Mutsu Province, on northern Honshu, was one of the last provinces to be formed as land was taken from the indigenous Emishi, and became the...

, Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

.

As of July 1, 2010, the city has an estimated population

Population

A population is all the organisms that both belong to the same group or species and live in the same geographical area. The area that is used to define a sexual population is such that inter-breeding is possible between any pair within the area and more probable than cross-breeding with individuals...

 of 44,379 and a population density

Population density

Population density is a measurement of population per unit area or unit volume. It is frequently applied to living organisms, and particularly to humans...

 of 731 persons per km². The total area is 60.71 km².

The city was founded on November 1, 1971, and maintains a sister city

Town twinning

Twin towns and sister cities are two of many terms used to describe the cooperative agreements between towns, cities, and even counties in geographically and politically distinct areas to promote cultural and commercial ties.- Terminology :...

 relationship with Napa

Napa, California

-History:The name Napa was probably derived from the name given to a southern Nappan village whose people shared the area with elk, deer, grizzlies and cougars for many centuries, according to Napa historian Kami Santiago. At the time of the first recorded exploration into Napa Valley in 1823, the...

, California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

http://www.napavalleyonline.com/directory/wssistercities.html.

Iwanuma is home to the Takekoma Inari Shrine

Takekoma Inari Shrine

Takekoma Inari is the second-oldest shrine to the kami Inari in Japan. It is located in Iwanuma in Miyagi Prefecture. It was established in the ninth century, reputedly by Ono no Takamura.Takekoma Inari annually celebrates a festival day...

, the second-oldest shrine dedicated to the kami

Kami

is the Japanese word for the spirits, natural forces, or essence in the Shinto faith. Although the word is sometimes translated as "god" or "deity", some Shinto scholars argue that such a translation can cause a misunderstanding of the term...

Inari

Inari (mythology)

is the Japanese kami of fertility, rice, agriculture, foxes, industry and worldly success and one of the principal kami of Shinto. Represented as male, female, or androgynous, Inari is sometimes seen as a collective of three or five individual kami...

.

It was seriously affected by the tsunami

Tsunami

A tsunami is a series of water waves caused by the displacement of a large volume of a body of water, typically an ocean or a large lake...

 associated with the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake.

Major roads

• East Sendai Expressway (Iwanuma interchange)
• Route 4
  Route 4 (Japan)
  National Route 4 is a major highway in eastern Honshū, Japan. The longest of the ordinary highways in Japan, it originates in Chūō, Tokyo and stretches north for 743.6 km to the city of Aomori in Aomori Prefecture. From Saitama Prefecture to Iwate Prefecture, it parallels the Tōhoku...
  
  , Route 6
  Route 6 (Japan)
  National Route 6 is a Japanese highway which goes from Tokyo via Mito and Hitachi in Ibaraki Prefecture towards Sendai. The route traces the old Mito Kaidō from Tokyo to Mito...