Matsue

Matsue, capital, Shimane ken (prefecture), southwestern Honshu, Japan. It lies on Lake Shinji and the Tenjin River, near the Sea of Japan (East Sea).

Matsue was known as the “city built on water,” and it retained its feudal character into the 1970s. Many of the buildings were designed by the feudal lord Fumai, who promoted the lacquer ware and pottery industries and the daily practice of the tea ceremony. During the 1970s Matsue was designated a “New Industrial City” by the Japanese government in a program designed to utilize underdeveloped areas and to relieve the congestion in larger industrial areas.

The city is a meeting point for land and sea communications and has an important commercial centre south of the river. The 17th-century Matsue Castle contains a giant rope made of rice straw to honour the Shintō harvest god. Matsue also has the residence of the 19th-century Irish American writer and educator Lafcadio Hearn, who lived and wrote there and became a naturalized Japanese subject. Pop. (2005) 196,603; (2010) 194,258.