Itoigawa-city is proud to own many distinctive heritages, featured by world’s oldest jade culture, old trading route follwing Tectonic line and one of the largest limestone industry. We maximize these historical characteristics in our daily life for long time.

In addition, Itoigawa is remarkably important as it has varieties of animal and plant species, thanks to the city’s unique geological and geographycal features.

To preserve and use these precious heritages for reginal sustainable development as well as passing to the future generation, we are aiming to join ‘Global Geopark Network’.

It is needed to pass strict criteria to be be admitted as ‘Global Geopark’ members. According to its criteria, Geopark can only be succesful if the initiative to create a Geopark come from local communities with strong commitment.

At the moment, over 10 areas including Itoigawa-city, are actively promoting    and arranging for the establishment of Geopark. Here we establish ‘Citizens Society for Promotion of Itoigawa Geopark’ by the citizen’s own initiatives for the purpose of establishing the first Global Geopark in Japan. To give strong support and work,we all learn from our valuable heritages, history, culture and nature