in Shizuoka Prefecture

Shizuoka Prefecture

is a prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region on Honshu island. The capital is the city of Shizuoka.- History :Shizuoka prefecture was formed from the former Tōtōmi, Suruga and Izu provinces.The area was the home of the first Tokugawa Shogun...

 is 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...

's tenth largest lake (by area). It spans the boundaries of the cities of Hamamatsu

Hamamatsu, Shizuoka

is a city located in western Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan. On July 1, 2005, the city merged with 11 surrounding cities and towns. It became a city designated by government ordinance on April 1, 2007.- History :...

 and Kosai

Kosai, Shizuoka

is a city located in far western Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan. As of 2010, the city has an estimated population of 60,582 and a density of 699 persons per km². The total area is 85.65 km².-Geography:...

.

Data

The lake has an area of 65.0 km² and holds 0.35 km³ of water. Its circumference is 114 km. At its deepest point, the water is 16.6 m deep. The surface is at sea level.

Economic activity

Lake Hamana is a commercial source of cultivated Japanese eel

Japanese eel

The Japanese eel, Anguilla japonica, is a species of eel found in Japan, Korea, Vietnam the East China Sea and the northern Philippines. Like the all the eels of its family, it is catadromous, meaning it lives parts of its life in both freshwater and saltwater. The specific spawning grounds have...

, nori

Nori

is the Japanese name for various edible seaweed species of the red alga Porphyra including most notably P. yezoensis and P. tenera, sometimes called laver. Finished products are made by a shredding and rack-drying process that resembles papermaking...

, oyster

Oyster

The word oyster is used as a common name for a number of distinct groups of bivalve molluscs which live in marine or brackish habitats. The valves are highly calcified....

s and Chinese soft-shelled turtles

Chinese Soft-shelled Turtle

The Chinese softshell turtle , formerly known as Trionyx sinensis, was described by Wiegmann in 1835. The species is also referred to as the Asiatic Soft Shelled Turtle....

. Fishers take sea bass

Sea bass

-Family Serranidae:* Barred sand bass , lives mainly off the coast of California* Black sea bass , whose range is the eastern coast of the United States...

, whiting

Sillaginidae

The Sillaginidae, commonly known as the smelt-whitings, whitings, sillaginids, sand borers and sand-smelts, are a family of benthic coastal marine fishes in the order Perciformes. The smelt-whitings inhabit a wide region covering much of the Indo-Pacific, from the west coast of Africa east to Japan...

, and flounder

Pleuronectidae

Righteye flounders are a family, Pleuronectidae, of flounders. They are called "righteye flounders" because most species lie on the sea bottom on their left side, with both eyes on the right side. The Paralichthyidae are the opposite, with their eyes on the left side.Their dorsal and anal fins are...

, among others. The lake has been developed as a resort area, with boating as a feature.

History

In ancient times, Lake Hamana was a fresh-water lake. However, a great earthquake in 1498

1498 Meiō Nankaidō earthquake

The 1498 Meiō Nankaidō earthquake occurred off the coast of Nankai, Japan, at about 08:00 local time on 20 September, 1498. It had a magnitude estimated at 8.6 MS and triggered a large tsunami...

 altered the topography of the area. As a result, the water in the lake is now brackish.

The old name for this lake is , which means "distant fresh-water lake." The name was changed to . From the perspective of the capital in the Kinki region, Tōtōmi is more distant than Ōmi (Lake Biwa

Lake Biwa

is the largest freshwater lake in Japan, located in Shiga Prefecture , northeast of the former capital city of Kyoto. Because of its proximity to the ancient capital, references to Lake Biwa appear frequently in Japanese literature, particularly in poetry and in historical accounts of battles.-...

), the "nearby lake." The name, Tōtōmi, was also used for a former province

Provinces of Japan

Before the modern prefecture system was established, the land of Japan was divided into tens of kuni , usually known in English as provinces. Each province was divided into gun ....

 in which the lake is located,.

Source

This article incorporates material from the article 浜名湖 (Hamanako) in the Japanese Wikipedia, retrieved on December 11, 2007.

External links

(Hamanako), Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (Japan)

Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (Japan)

The , abbreviated MLIT, is a ministry of the Japanese government. It is responsible for one-third of all the laws and orders in Japan and the largest Japanese ministry in terms of employees, as well as the second-largest organ of the Japanese government after the Ministry of Defense...

(Hamanako Cycling Road), Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (Japan)