Minamata City

Kumamoto Prefecture · City

Official website Kumamoto Prefecture page

Minamata City, in the far south of Kumamoto Prefecture, faces the Shiranui Sea and the Amakusa Islands. Known worldwide for the pollution disease Minamata disease, the city has used that experience to build an environment-conscious community. It has seaside Yunoko Onsen (hot spring), terraced rice fields in the mountain district of Sabukawa, and a memorial museum for Tokutomi Soho.

Key facts

Population: 20,782 884th in Japan2025 Census
5-year change: −11.8% 281st in Japanfrom 23,557 in 2020
Area: 163 km² 730th in Japan
Population density: 127 people/km² 976th in Japan

Source: Statistics Bureau of Japan, 2025 Population Census (population, area and density); area from the Geospatial Information Authority of Japan (GSI), Area Statistics of Prefectures and Municipalities (2025). National ranks are among the 1,741 municipalities, ordered by this site from these values.

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Chosen automatically, most popular first, from landmarks and cultural properties registered in Wikidata (we have not checked whether each is open). Names and descriptions: Wikidata (CC0); photos: Wikimedia Commons (photographer and license under each photo).

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Municipalities sharing a boundary (computed from the National Land Numerical Information administrative boundaries, January 2021).

The description was written for this site, picking out representative features.

Figures come from official Japanese statistics (such as the 2025 Census by the Statistics Bureau of Japan), with the source and year shown next to each one. Photos are freely licensed images from Wikimedia Commons; the photographer and license are shown under each photo.

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