It reads しもすわまち — Shimosuwa 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. Shimosuwa is marked in red.
Measured as real great-circle distance from Shimosuwa.
Booking links are affiliate links — they cost you nothing and help keep Nihoner free.
These are affiliate links. Nihoner may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.
下諏訪町 is read しもすわまち (Shimosuwa Machi). It is a town in Nagano 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.
Shimosuwa has a population of 18,801 across 67 km², making it the 901st largest of Japan's 1,651 municipalities and the 23rd largest of the 73 in Nagano.
The closest municipalities to Shimosuwa are Okaya Shi (2 km), Suwa Shi (5 km), Chino Shi (11 km).