It reads ちゃたんちょう — Chatan Cho. This is one of the harder names in the country: small municipalities are exactly where Japan's nandoku chimei (難読地名, "hard-to-read place names") live.
This place is one of 1,651 in Chimei, our Japan city game. Read the kanji, then pin it on the map.
Play Chimei →Every dot is one of Japan's 1,651 municipalities, plotted at its real coordinates. Chatan is marked in red.
Measured as real great-circle distance from Chatan.
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北谷町 is read ちゃたんちょう (Chatan Cho). It is a town in Okinawa Prefecture.
町 means "town" and is read chō / machi. A town. 町 is read either chō or machi — which one is local convention, and it varies by region. This is one of the classic traps in Japanese place names.
Chatan has a population of 28,167 across 14 km², making it the 754th largest of Japan's 1,651 municipalities and the 16th largest of the 41 in Okinawa.
The closest municipalities to Chatan are Kitanakagusuku Son (4 km), Kadena Cho (4 km), Ginowan Shi (5 km).