main road leading from Kyoto to the northern lands as they opened up. Kanzan was also seen as the exact center of Ōshū which stretched from the Shirakawa Barrier in the south to Sotogahama in present-day Aomori Prefecture. Kiyohira built the large temple complex known as Chūson-ji. The first structure was a large pagoda at the very top of the mountain. In conjunction with this, he placed small umbrella reliquaries (kasa sotoba) every hundred meters along the Ōshū kaidō decorated with placards depicting Amida Buddha painted in gold. Other pagodas, temples and gardens followed including the Konjiki-dō, a jewel box of a building intended to represent the Buddhist Pure Land and the final resting place of the Fujiwara lords. Hiraizumi's golden age lasted for nearly 100 years. It was destroyed in 1189, and, after the fall of the Fujiwara clan, the town sank back into relative obscurity, and most of the buildings that gave the town its cultural prominence were destroyed. When the poet Matsuo Bashō saw the state of the town in 1689 he penned a famous haiku about the impermanence of human glory: 夏草や / 兵どもが / 夢の跡 Natsukusa ya! / Tsuwamono-domo ga / yume no ato Ah, summer grasses! / All that remains / Of the warriors' dreams. (1689) Modern Hiraizumi village was created on April 1, 1889 with the establishment of the post-Meiji restoration municipality system. Hiraizumi was raised to town status on October 1, 1953. It annexed neighboring Nagashima village on April 15, 1955. The town lost some land to the city of Ichinoseki on September 1, 1956, and again on May 1, 1964. Government Hiraizumi has a mayor-council form of government with a directly elected mayor and a unicameral town council of 12 members. Hiraizumi and the city of Ichinoseki collectively contribute five seats to the Iwate Prefectural legislature. In terms of national politics, the city is part of Iwate 3rd district of the lower house of the Diet of Japan. Economy The local economy is based on agriculture and tourism. Education Hiraizumi has two public elementary schools and one public middle school operated by the town government. The town does not have a high school. Transportation East Japan Railway Company (JR East) - Tōhoku Main Line Highway – Chusonji PA – Hiraizumi-Maezawa IC International relations – Tiantai County, Zhejiang Province, China – friendship city since 2010 Local attractions Hiraizumi has a number of