Over the last few decades, theories of the spatial structure of Japanese villages have been the subject of controversy in human geography, folklore, cultural anthropology, history and architecture. The author identifies an important unresolved question concerning these theories. Although many scholars have profoundly discussed each of the categories of space such as land use zones, folk-taxonomy, 'place', social space, and symbolic space, the interrelationships among these categories and the synthesis of them have not been sufficiently examined.
With this in mind, this article discusses each of the categories of space for a case study area, an agricultural and forestry village-Hagikura-in Central Japan, to reveal the interrelationships among all spatial categories by introducing a semiotic theory. The author examines the historical changes of space since the mid-Edo era, when Hagikura was settled. To pursue these aims, various methods and materials are used: interviews, landscape observation, participant observation, the analysis of land ledgers, cadastral maps, tax ledgers, local topographies, historical documents and geographical statistics.
Hagikura was a shinden settlement which stands on a river terrace near Lake Suwa in Nagano Prefecture, and is now a mixed-settlement in which newcomers from Shimosuwa Town have settled since the era of rapid growth in the Japanese economy. The subsistence farming economy of Hagikura is based on paddy, mulberry and vegetables, sericulture and forestry. In addition, people have been engaged in filature in the Meiji era, agar production in the Taisyo era and dairy farming and flower cultivation in the 1960s. Recently, almost all farmers have become factory or office workers, commuting to the towns along Lake Suwa.
The findings of this article can be summarised as follows. The folk-taxonomy of space, which is deduced by an investigation of place names and folk categories of landscape, is composed of five levels: land use zone, subdivision of the zone, koaza (small place name), block name, and strip name. In the residential area, there is another classification system of social space composed of four levels: dual organization, mutual aid organization for funerals, neighborhood group, and household. In each land use zone, the shrine which guards the people working in each zone is located showing the center of meaning. As the center of the total area, the shrine of the settlement is located at the cardinal point of two axes of folk orientations which structure the village territory in concentric circles. These orientations are prescribed by the zofu-tokusui topography of fung-shui tought, whose rear is a hill and front is a river. This spatial structure with these land use zones and folk orientations is found similarly in homesteads and fields owned by each household. The boundaries of each land use zone and village social space are demarcated by objects such as stone statues and isolated trees, and through varied ritual behaviors. The social space of the village community which corresponds to the village territory is divided into nested boxes according to the social group system. All of the boundaries of the village are folk, social, mental, or symbolical, and the outer boundary of the forestry zone is, at the same time, a geographical or administrative one.
The social structure of the village social space is composed of three groups-'natives', oldcomers and newcomers. The natives who settled in the Edo era and consist of nine kinship groups were former landowners or independent farmers. The oldcomers who settled in the Meiji era as filature or farming workers were tenants of native landowners in the Taisyo and early Showa eras. The newcomers are factory or office workers who have settled in new housing estates since the rapid growth of the Japanese economy. The main native families occupied the cultivated fields near the residential area.

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The adoption and diffusion of center pivot irrigation systems transformed the traditional landscape of the High Plains. While Finney County in southwest Kansas has been known as one of the most advanced irrigation districts of the High Plains, vast sandhills on the right bank of the Arkansas River remained extensive cattle pasture until center pivot irrigation systems had completely changed the farming landscape during the 1970s. The new irrigation technology and feed crop cultivation combined to develop the feedlot and beef packing industries in the region. This paper examines the transformation process of landownership and land use in the sandhills of Finney County with special reference to the diffusion of center pivot irrigation systems.
Cattle industry began in the Garden City area in the late nineteenth century, and large landholdings and extensive cattle raising continued to dominate the sandhills up to the 1960s. Large landholdings with over 10, 000 acres included Brown, Cowgill, Burnside, Douglas, and Jones ranches. They purchased calves from ranchers of the western states, raised them on the natural pasture, and shipped them to the corn belt for finishing. Some ranchers specialized in breeding high quality beef cattle, and others took care of the calves born in the local farms from spring through fall. The region, blessed with ground water and natural pasture, was also known as winter refuge for animals.
Land register maps and aerial photos reveal substantial changes which took place in the sandhills during the 1970s. Large feedlot companies and agribusinesses came to own large tracts of land by purchasing traditional cattle ranches, while descendants of homesteaders also participated in the irrigation development. Gigot Irrigation Co. first demonstrated the effectiveness of center pivot irrigation systems in developing additional sandhills land which they purchased, while acting as a sales agent of the Valley brand irrigation systems. The company sold 600 sets of center pivot irrigation systems annually in two boom years of 1972 and 1973, while the company's average annual sales amounted to around 200 sets in the following years. Thus, the rich ground water resources of Ogalalla aquifer were exploited. The rapid process of adopting the new technology transformed the traditional barrens into the fertile farming regions irrigated by big circles.
Large land holders are typically found in the sandhills. Circle Land and Cattle Inc. owned by Gigot families manage more than 20, 000 acres. Brookover Feedyards, which started cattle feeding in the early 1950s just northwest of Garden City, expanded their business in the sandhills by introducing center pivot irrigation systems, developing subdivisions, and managing golf courses. IBP, a beef packing company operating the world's largest packing plant just west of Garden City, and Tim Dewey Farms and Cattle Co. also started irrigation farming by purchasing land in the sandhills. Corn and alfalfa are the two major irrigation crops, which are consumed locally at large feedlots. Because of these developments since the 1970s, lowering the water table of the Ogalalla aquifer is considered a serious problem in order to sustain the highly water consuming farming of the sandhills.

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Anglophone historical geography continues to exhibit a strong focus on the intersections between environment and culture. The investigation of cultural landscapes, traditionally one of the most recognizable of subdisciplinary identifiers, is still well supported. Recent developments indicate some movement away from foundational interests and the introduction of an augmented range of intradisciplinary and interdisciplinary activity.
It is argued that the resultant alleged collision with environmental history may have been exaggerated, at least to the extent that the proposition has disguised other important convergences. The discussion then selects four overlapping types or zones of convergence which offer some proven potential for a resurgent historical geography: old and new liaisons between historical geography, physical geography and ecology; with cultural ecology and landscape; with revived heritage, identity and conservation themes; and with historiography.
This leads to a tentative conclusion suggesting that, despite the deliberate selectivity of this review article, the evidence seems to be indicating a high degree of activity which may have become overly-concentrated on the production of short journal articles. Supplementation with more extended monographs may now provide a better test of the capacity of modern historical geography to reach an intradisciplinary or interdisciplinary future.

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This paper analyzes how the vegetable production region in Yachiyo Town has developed, clarifies the basis on which it is sustained and discusses the sustainability of rental fallow land use. The settlement of Osaki, which specializes in vegetable production, is selected as the study area in Yachiyo Town.
Until about 1960, the main form of agriculture in Yachiyo Town was wheat and barley. A method of cultivation for water melons and Chinese cabbages was introduced by a regional leader in the early 1950s. The introduction of this method of cultivation is related to changes in the economic environment-for example, the importation of wheat after World War 2. The vegetable production region in Yachiyo Town is categorized in two stages based on the type of selling: The first stage in which the requirements of farm groups is sought, and the second stage in which the marketing of the individual farm is sought. The market, which is organized privately in the surrounding area, was established in the early 1960s. Most of the Chinese cabbages are shipped to the Tohoku and Hokkaido regions through these markets. As a result, Yachiyo Town is devoted to growing Chinese cabbage and occupied the first rank in Japan in the late 1960s.
However, its productivity declined due to the repeated mono-cultivation of melons and Chinese cabbages. Vegetable production in vinyl plastic hothouses was introduced in the early 1970s, but this was not developed into the dominant agricultural form. The farmhouse has managed a large amount of rental fallow farmland both within and outside the area of the town. Internal factors, including social relationships between landlord and tenant farmer have influenced the farmer's decision-making with implications for the development and sustainability of the vegetable production region.

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The purposes of this paper are, first, to analyze population distribution changes 1965-95 in Japan by four categories-the existing metropolitan area; new suburbs; new metropolitan area; and non-metropolitan area-by using the Hoover index, and, second, to compare the results obtained for Japan with those for the US presented in Nucci and Long (1995) and Long and Nucci (1997). To clarify the temporal changes in population distribution, the delineation of metropolitan areas needs to employ a floating principle rather than a fixed one, and the definition of metropolitan areas should be similar to that of Standard Metropolitan Statistical Areas (SMSA) used in the US. To meet these conditions, the Standard Metropolitan Employment Areas (SMEA) advocated by H. Yamada and K. Tokuoka are used in this article.
In Japan, during the period 1965-75, there occurred a considerable population concentration due to a marked population increase in the old suburbs located in the core regions (such as Kanto, Tokai and Kinki) and to a large population decrease in non-metropolitan areas in the peripheral regions (such as Hokkaido, Tohoku, Hokuriku, Chugoku, Shikoku and Kyushu). During the period 1975-85, the difference between the population change rates of the core and the periphery levelled off. However, in the peripheral regions, the main category of population growth was the old central cities and depopulation in non-metropolitan areas continued. In the core regions, the category showing the largest rate of increase shifted from the old suburbs to the newly-added suburbs, implying population deconcentration from the old SMEAs. During 1985-95, deconcentration proceeded further in the core portion of the country. Meanwhile, in the peripheral regions, whereas the category showing the largest rate of increase finally shifted from the old SMEAs to the newer suburbs, non-metropolitan areas returned to recording a heavy population decrease.
With respect to the 1965-95 period as a whole, the population increase in the newer SMEAs created in the non-metropolitan areas was negligible. Bearing in mind the depopulation of the non-SMEAs, this means that we cannot regard the overall trend of population redistribution as being counterurbanization.
With regard to the Japan-US comparison, population deconcentration in the old metropolitan areas is common to both countries, but the following remarkable differences can be noted. First, in the US, the contribution of the new metropolitan areas created in the non-metropolitan areas to urbanization is more conspicuous than that of the new suburbs added to the old metropolitan areas. Second, whereas a clean break with the past in terms of population redistribution was found in the US, such a phenomenon was not observed in Japan. Third, in Japan, population growth in the core regions and depopulation in the peripheral regions are found throughout the period, whereas in the US, both types of region take on different change aspects and the spatial patterns of population redistribution are far more complicated.

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