Photos of Sanbuichi-Spring in Hokuto-City, Yamanashi Prefecture

The Yatsugatake area, which I introduced on June 1st, has good water sources. This place, “Sanbuichi Spring”, is one of the springs with excellent water quality and is designated as “100 Famed Mineral Waters” by the Ministry of the Environment.

The name “Sanbuichi” means “One third” because the source is split into three waterways right away as you can see in the photos below. Apparently, in old times people had been fighting over the right of this spring for agricultural water, then to solve the problem people built the structure which could divide the water to three villages equally. Since then this place have been maintained well by the people and became a symbol of ancestral wisdom. So the nature is well protected here as shown in the small photos at the lower right, and those who visit here can enjoy it in addition to the good water.

Generally speaking, a place of good water source would be a good place for producing good liquor. In fact there are several liquor companies in this Hokuto City including one of the two main factories of a world-famous whiskey company “Suntory”.