Kisakata, Natural monument and Place of Scenic Beauty in Nikaho, Japan

Kisakata is a former lagoon in Nikaho, Akita Prefecture, now a rice-growing plain dotted with about sixty low, pine-covered mounds that were once islands. The mounds are flow hills formed by a collapse of Mount Chokai; the protected area is a Natural Monument and Place of Scenic Beauty. A walking route of a few kilometres, partly shared with farm roads, starts near Kammon-ji and passes among the mounds.

A lagoon filled the area until 1804, when an earthquake lifted the seabed and pushed back the water. The new land was turned to farming, while the former islands remained as low hills between the fields.

The poet Matsuo Basho traveled through the region in 1689 and wrote verses about the landscape that were later included in his travel journal. His descriptions capture the bay and its islands in images that remain well known in Japanese literature today.

The viewpoints give an overview of the fields and scattered island hills, which are easiest to read in clear weather. Several paved paths connect the main lookout spots and pass through pine forests and farmland.

About sixty island remnants, not eight, still dot the rice fields; the name Nine-Nine Islands (Kujukushima) has stayed in use since the lagoon era. The writer Shiba Ryotaro suggested in his travel essays that their survival owed something to the stand taken by the priest Kakurin.