a prefecture in Japan, in the central part of Honshu. Area, 6,300 sq km. Population, 1.6 million (1968), 56 percent urban. Its administrative center is the city of Maebashi. The prefecture is situated on the southeast slope of the Etigo volcanic range, which reaches an altitude of 2,578 m, and on the adjacent parts of the Kanto plain near the Tone River. On the mountain slopes there are fir forests. The rivers of the area have great hydroelectric potential.
Gumma is part of the Kanto economic region. Of the economically active part of the population (about 50 percent, or 812,000), 33 percent are involved in agriculture, 25 percent in processing industries, 15 percent in commerce, and 12 percent in service occupations. In the postwar period, there has been a trend away from an agriculturally specialized economy to a more industrial-agrarian one. The leading branches of industry, in terms of percentage of the total monetary value of production of the prefecture, are as follows: food-processing (16.5 percent), textiles (16 percent), electric machine building (13 percent), and transport machine building (13 percent). Manganese ore is mined, and potassium nitrate is extracted from the craters of extinct volcanoes. Another important branch of the economy is silk culture, which involves 30,000 hectares and provides 24 percent of Japan’s production of silk cocoons. A total of 120,000 hectares is under cultivation, of which 40 percent is used for rice cultivation (160,000 tons harvested per year). Horticulture and timber are also important.
N. A. SMIRNOV