Delegation from Kakegawa, Japan visits on 45th anniversary as sister city

from the Eugene City Manager’s Office and staff reports

An official delegation from Kakegawa, Japan, arrives Saturday, Aug. 3, to mark the 45th anniversary of the sister city relationship with Eugene.

The visit, coordinated by the Eugene Kakegawa Sister City Committee, will consist of Kakegawa Mayor Takashi Kubota, several staff from the city of Kakegawa, and several business owners from the Kakegawa community.

While here, the delegation will be formally received by Mayor Lucy Vinis at Eugene City Hall, tour city facilities and Hayward Field, and meet with Eugene Area Chamber of Commerce members.

The visit will conclude with a friendship dinner attended by members of the Eugene Kakegawa Sister City Committee and members of the Eugene City Council.

The sister cities program has been part of the City of Eugene since 1961, when Jinju, South Korea, became Eugene’s first sister city, followed by Kathmandu, Nepal (1975), Kakegawa, Japan (1979), and Irkutsk, Russia (1988). The city established the programs to promote peace, greater understanding, friendship and appreciation between cities and countries.

The city council suspended its sister city relationship with the “Paris of Siberia,” Irkutsk, in 2022.

From 2006 to 2019, Kakegawa sent a delegation of high school students to Eugene every year, with the objective of building goodwill and cultural exchange. The purpose of this year’s visit is to deepen the relationship between the two cities and to explore new cultural and economic connections, including the resumption of Kakegawa student delegation visits to Eugene in 2025. Mayor Lucy Vinis last visited Kakegawa in 2023.

The non-profit Eugene Kakegawa Sister City Committee receives funding from the City of Eugene to provide direction and support to the sister city relationship with Kakegawa. The committee is comprised of community volunteers who coordinate cultural, educational and information activities.

Kakegawa is a city on the eastern side of the island of Honshu, around 120 miles southwest of Tokyo with a population of around 115,000. Kakegawa has a mixed economy with green tea production and processing as a leading industry. Other major products manufactured in Kakegawa include telecommunications equipment and electronics, cosmetics, automotive components and musical instruments. The Kakegawa area has been a regional commercial center and developed as a castle town. Kakegawa Castle was built in the late 1400s.

The sister cities movement supports cooperative agreements between cities in geographically and politically distinct areas to promote cultural and commercial ties. There are more than 500 sister city programs throughout the United States linked with over 140 countries around the world. Most of these programs, including Eugene’s, are members of Sister Cities International, the national membership organization for sister cities established by President Eisenhower in 1956.

To learn more about the sister city program, see Eugene’s website.