The is a river in Toyama Prefecture

Toyama Prefecture

is a prefecture of Japan located in the Hokuriku region on Honshū island. The capital is the city of Toyama.Toyama is the leading industrial prefecture on the Japan Sea coast, and has the industrial advantage of cheap electricity due to abundant water resources....

, 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...

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The river rises from Mount Daimon on the border of Ishikawa Prefecture

Ishikawa Prefecture

is a prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region on Honshū island. The capital is Kanazawa.- History :Ishikawa was formed from the merger of Kaga Province and the smaller Noto Province.- Geography :Ishikawa is on the Sea of Japan coast...

 and enters the sea at Toyama Bay

Toyama Bay

is a bay located on the northern shores of Honshu, Japan. The bay borders Toyama and Ishikawa prefectures. The bay is known for the mirages on the horizon during the winter months. It is also one of Japan's three largest bays.-Border communities:...

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The name Oyabe is meaningless in Japanese. It appears to be an Ainu

Ainu languages

The Ainu languages were a small language family spoken on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaidō, the southern half of the island of Sakhalin, and the Kuril Islands, an island chain that stretches from Hokkaidō to the southern tip of the Kamchatka Peninsula. They are alternately considered a...

name, oyaw pet [ojawbet] 'snake river', perhaps due to its serpentine course; there is also a legend of a battle with a monstrous snake, whose death created part of the local landscape.