It reads くまむら — Kuma Mura. 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. Kuma is marked in red.
Measured as real great-circle distance from Kuma.
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球磨村 is read くまむら (Kuma Mura). It is a village in Kumamoto Prefecture.
村 means "village" and is read mura / son. A village. 村 is read either mura or son, again by local convention rather than by rule.
Kuma has a population of 3,043 across 208 km², making it the 1458th largest of Japan's 1,651 municipalities and the 43rd largest of the 45 in Kumamoto.
The closest municipalities to Kuma are Yamae Mura (11 km), Hitoyoshi Shi (11 km), Sagara Mura (13 km).