Up to 1873, the cultivated areas and residential quarters in the Koriyama basin were confined to the flood plains of the Gohyaku, the Huzita, the Ôse and the Sasawara, four tributaries of the River Abukuma. Natural landscape spread over the vast upland that occupied the largest part of the basin-floor, except Ôtuki-fan. Very slight and only slow changes in landscape took place up to that time. But since 1873, some groups of “Hansi” or knights belonging to the feudal lords of Pre-Restoration days, arrived from various parts of the country, settled in the Kôriyama basin, and reclaimed the grassy places called “Hara”, such as Taimen-para, Koya-hara, etc. The need of water to irrigate the clearings resulted in the conduction of water from Lake Inawasiro. This attracted further settlers from neighbouring regions, resulting in sudden changes in the landscape. It was therefore not nature, but man that caused the changes in landscape in the Kôriyama basin, although judging from the distribution of the clearing and that of the surviving forests, it seems that they harmonise with upland topography.
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