Hakui, Ishikawa

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Location of Hakui in Ishikawa prefecture

Hakui (羽咋市, Hakui-shi^?) is a city located in Ishikawa, Japan.

1 General
2 Name
3 Business
4 Shrine
5 UFO
6 References
7 External links

[edit] General

As of 2005, the city has an estimated population of 25,210 and the density of 307.63 persons per km². The total area is 81.95 km².

The city was founded on July 1, 1958.

[edit] Name

The name of the town is made of two Kanji, 羽 (ha), meaning feathers, and 咋(kui) meaning eat or take in your mouth. This name comes from an ancient legend which tells of a royal prince killing a monstrous bird which plagued the area. The Prince's dogs went to the beast's body and pulled away mouthfuls of feathers.^[1]

[edit] Business

Hakui is the central city of the Southern Noto district, and every limited express train stops at Hakui station. There are many shops along Route 415, the biggest shopping center is MaxValu Hakui (350 car park).

Main roads are, Noto tollway(Yanagida IC), Route 249, Route 159, Route 415, Prefectural Road 2.

[edit] Shrine

Keta Big shrine( Keta taisha, 気多大社) is the Head shrine of Noto district. This shrine is known as god of love, and many young women come to wish for good love and marriage.

Dedicated to Oanamuji no mikoto(大己貴命).

Festivals of the shrine: U-matsuri, Hirakuni-matsuri.

Many people have seen UFO flying from the back mountain of this shrine.

[edit] UFO

Hakui has made somewhat of a name for itself as the UFO sighting capital of Japan. This is reflected in a number of places around the city, including a UFO shaped street light at the Western entrance to the train station, plaques depicting UFO's (amongst other things) set in the pavement outside the city hall, a UFO themed pachinko parlour on route 249 (knocked down Dec '07), and most notably Cosmo Isle Hakui, a spaceship-shaped building in the center of the city. Cosmo Isle is home to a UFO and NASA space research museum, as well as theaters, ceremony halls and conference rooms for business use. The building is also home to the Hakui City Division of Lifelong Learning, a branch of the city's board of education.^{[citation needed]}