Ibaraki

Ibaraki (ēbä`räkē), prefecture (1990 pop. 2,845,411), 2,352 sq mi (6,092 sq km), central Honshu, Japan. Mito is the capital. The prefecture yields tobacco, cereals, coal, copper, petrochemicals, and electric machinery. A nuclear fuel plant in Tokaimura, N central Ibaraki, was the site of accident involving an uncontrolled chain reaction in 1999.

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Ibaraki 

a prefecture in Japan on the eastern seacoast of the island of Honshu. Area, 6,100 sq km. Most of Ibaraki is covered with mountains and hills, and one-fifth of it is low-land. Population (1970), 2,100,000, with 45 percent living in the cities.

Mito is the administrative center of the prefecture. Ibaraki is part of the Kwanto economic region; 234,300 hectares are cultivated. Rice, wheat, barley, and tobacco are grown, as are vegetables (cucumbers, tomatoes) and orchard crops (pears and so forth). Ibaraki is first in Japan in livestock raising, with 580,000 head of swine. The key industries are electric machine building, metallurgy (chiefly ferrous), and food production. Industrial enterprises (the Hitachi concern) are concentrated mainly in the city of Hitachi.

Near the settlement of Tokai is the Japanese center for atomic research and industry (four experimental reactors and an atomic power plant with an output of 160,000 kilowatts). In the Hitachi region pyrites and copper are mined.

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Ibaraki 

a city in Japan on the island of Honshu, in Osaka Prefecture. Population, 164,000 (1970). Ibaraki has metal-lurgical, electrical machine-building, cable, chemical, food, and tobacco industries.