Zushi–Hayama: What each name actually covers | LoreMania
Place names in Zushi and Hayama stack municipal and prefectural boundaries together with smaller district and shrine names, which makes it easy to mix up their scope.
This page sorts out the place names tied to Zushi and Hayama, from the largest administrative units down to individual districts.
It also checks, against sources, why a single kofun group's name combines two different district names.
Administrative scope
Three scales nest here: Zushi, a city since 1954; Hayama, the last remaining town in Miura District; and Kanagawa Prefecture, which contains the whole Miura Peninsula.
Zushi
A city at the base of the Miura Peninsula in Kanagawa Prefecture. It separated from Yokosuka City in 1950 to become Zushi Town, then was incorporated as a city on April 15, 1954, with a population of about 37,800, the ninth largest in the prefecture at the time.
Hayama
A town in Miura District, Kanagawa Prefecture, and the only municipality left in that district. It became home to the Hayama Imperial Villa in 1894 and is also known as a birthplace of Japanese yachting, with a population of about 32,000.
Kanagawa Prefecture
A prefecture in the southwestern Kanto region with Yokohama as its capital. It has Japan's second-largest prefectural population, at roughly 9.2 million, and every municipality on the Miura Peninsula, including Zushi and Hayama, belongs to it.
District and shrine names
Numama is traced to an ancient record in the Shosoin archives, Sakurayama pairs with the kofun group's name, and Morito Shrine's deity was, by tradition, invited from Izu in 1180.
Numama
A district in eastern Zushi that forms the approach to Jinmuji temple. Its name is thought to derive from an ancient record in the Shosoin archives, and the Tagoe River rises here before flowing through the city to Sagami Bay.
Sakurayama
A district that forms the Zushi-side location of the Nagae-Sakurayama Kofun Group. One local story about its detached "Sakurayama-Oyama" parcel holds that, in the Edo period, neighboring Nagae village had Sakurayama take over its tax-labor burden in exchange for the land.
Morito Shrine
Popularly called Morito Daimyojin. Tradition holds it was founded in 1180 when Minamoto no Yoritomo invited a divided spirit of Mishima Myojin from Izu here in thanks for his successful uprising — notably, not a locally native deity.
FAQ
Why does the Nagae-Sakurayama Kofun Group's name combine both "Sakurayama" and "Nagae"?
The mounds sit on a ridge straddling the border between Zushi's Sakurayama and Hayama's Nagae districts, so the group's name combines both district names.
Where was Morito Shrine's deity invited from?
Not from a local source — tradition says Minamoto no Yoritomo invited a divided spirit of Mishima Myojin, in Izu (present-day Shizuoka), in 1180.