Hiratsuka, Kanagawa

Hiratsuka (平塚市, Hiratsuka-shi) is a city located in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan.

As of June 2012, the city has an estimated population of 259,698 and a population density of 3,830 persons per km². The total area is 67.83 km².

Geography

Hiratsuka is located on the western Kantō Plain midway between Tokyo and Mount Fuji, and has a 5-kilometer coastline in the Shōnan area on the Pacific Ocean in Sagami Bay.

Surrounding municipalities

History

The area around Hiratsuka has been settled since prehistoric times, and mention of the area as part of ancient Ōsumi District, Sagami Province is found in Nara period records. From the Heian period through Kamakura period, the area was divided into shōen controlled by various samurai clans and in the Sengoku period was the site of several battles between the late Hōjō clan of Odawara and the Miura clan. After the defeat of the Hōjō at the Battle of Odawara by Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the area came under the control of Tokugawa Ieyasu, who built a summer palace (the Nakahara Goten) in 1596 at the site now occupied by the Hiratsuka City Nakahara Elementary/Primary School. Hiratsuka was retained as tenryō territory after the establishment of the Tokugawa shogunate, and flourished as Hiratsuka-juku, a post town on the Tōkaidō connecting Edo with Kyoto.