The Japanese word “Kyodo” means one's home area or one's home province. Present day, the term of “Kyodo” is not used and the term of “local area” is used in geographical teaching and social studies education in the primary and secondary school in Japan. But the “Kyodo” had been used before 1968. The authors would like to using the term of “Kyodo”.
In this paper they discuss on the spatial extent of Kyodo area which is one of the main themes about the Kyodo study in school.
There are following three ideas on the spatial extent of Kyodo area.
(1) Observable field
(2) Sphere of living
(3) Administrative district (Prefecture, city, town and village).
Makiguchi (1912, 1916) has supported the idea of “observable field”, and he recognized the far distant observable field as the Kyodo area too. From the same view, Kikuchi (1960) has described that discussing the spatial extent of Kyodo area was not meaning.
Uchida (1933) and Tanaka (1954) have supported the idea of “sphere of living” which is the residents' daily living area. As the sphere of living is spread beyond on the administrative districts such as the city, town and so on, Uchida and Tanaka have not supported the idea of “administrative district”. Though the sphere of living is the most popular idea present day, the authors support the idea of “administrative district” (prefecture, city and so on).
The authors consider not only cognitive contents but also children's attitudes to thier Kyodo in the school teaching. Thinking from this view, the “administrative district” is very important. Therefore we support this idea. And we have proved this idea by interview method resarch to 308 residents in Oota city, Gunma prefecture and Ashikaga city, Tochigi prefecture which are located close to the prefectures' boundary at 1994-1996.
Lastly we want to revive the term of “Kyodo”.

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In the High Plains regions of the United States, once called the Great American Desert, productive farming regions were formed due to the introduction of center pivot irrigation systems since the 1960s. Finney county of Southwest Kansas, our study area, is one of the most productive farming regions in the High Plains, where irrigation has a long history. While windmills were built to take advantage of shallow ground water in the late nineteenth century, surface water became diverted from the Arkansas River by constructing irrigtion ditches beginning in the 1880s. Ditch irrigation was further promoted by the construction of sugar factory in Garden City in 1906 and the subsequent sugar beet cultivation mainly on the High Plains tablelands of the left bank of the Arkansas. On the other hand, introduction of turbine pumps and the use of inexpensive natural gas pumped from the underlying Hugoton gas field combined to promote the development of ground water irrigation from the 1940s.
The most striking in the history of the High Plains is the invention and introduction of the center pivot irrigation system. The Gigots introduced a valley brand system of center pivot irrigation in 1963 in order to improve their farmland in the sandhill, and their success triggered the application of the new irrigation technology. The early 1970s were boom years in Garden City and its vicinity when the Gigot Irrigation soled 600 systems annually. The sandhills on the right bank of the Arkansas, where rolling topography, infertile soils, and excessive drainage defied intensive use of land and therefore remained the barrens, were most efectively transformed into the landscape dominated by big circles. On the left bank, center pivot systems were introduced in the dry land farming districts on the talbelands, while they are gradually replacing traditional ditch and groundwater irrigation. Such a transformation process is well documented by the distribution of wells and the aerial photo analyses. Due to these irrigation developments, production of feed crops expanded such as maize, alfalfa, sorghum, and soy beans.
The development of irrigation and feed crop production is key to understand the subsequent phases of regional changes, including feedlot and beef packing industries, population composition and dynamics, and undergroud water management. It is necessary to closely examine these geographic features in order to understand the sustainability of the High Plains regions.

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