Sodegaura Park, Public park in Sodegaura, Japan.
Sodegaura Park is a park in Iwadomi, Sodegaura, Chiba Prefecture, with a free parking lot and a bus stop, Sodegaura Kōen-mae, on the Nittō Kōtsū line from JR Sodegaura Station. Its grounds hold the Sodegaura City Local Museum, the Aqua-Line Naruhodo Museum, the former Shindō family residence, a Man'yō botanical garden, an observation deck, an iris garden, a stream, a fish pond, a large slide playground and a flower terrace.
Sodegaura Park occupies a site in the Iitomi district of Sodegaura, on ground about 20 metres above sea level near Tokyo Bay. The city's local history museum and the Aqua-Line Naruhodo museum now stand within its grounds, alongside the former Shindo family residence, a late-Edo-period building of a wealthy farming household whose head served as a local deputy official.
The iris garden covers 3,600 square metres and holds 50 varieties and 15,000 plants, flowering from late May into June. The park also keeps a Manyo botanical garden where 105 of the roughly 160 plants named in the Manyo poetry anthology can be seen. The Sodegaura City Museum of Local History and the Aquiline Naruhodo Museum stand on the grounds.
The park lies in the Iwadomi district of Sodegaura, Chiba Prefecture, about 40 km southeast of central Tokyo. From JR Sodegaura Station take the Nitto Kotsu bus bound for Hirakawa Administrative Center and get off at Sodegaura Park-mae. Car parking is free, though spaces for large and medium vehicles are charged.
The park is known for its many stray cats, which began multiplying around 2005; by 2015 more than 100 were estimated to live on the grounds. The city and the park's management association run neutering and spaying programs, patrols and warning signs to cope with the colony.
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