It reads いわてまち — Iwate Machi. 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. Iwate is marked in red.
Measured as real great-circle distance from Iwate.
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岩手町 is read いわてまち (Iwate Machi). It is a town in Iwate 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.
Iwate has a population of 12,078 across 360 km², making it the 1075th largest of Japan's 1,651 municipalities and the 21st largest of the 33 in Iwate.
The closest municipalities to Iwate are Hachimantai Shi (11 km), Kuzumaki Machi (21 km), Ichinohe Machi (27 km).