query: located_in_the_administrative_territorial_entity japan national route 460
supports: Geography.
  Shibata is located in a mostly inland region of north-central Niigata Prefecture, with a small shoreline of the Sea of Japan. The area is noted for extremely heavy snowfall in winter. Asia is Earth's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres and sharing the continental landmass of Eurasia with the continent of Europe. Asia covers an area of , about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area. The continent, which has long been home to the majority of the human population, was the site of many of the first civilizations. Asia is notable for not only its overall large size and population, but also dense and large settlements as well as vast barely populated regions within the continent of 4.4 billion people. China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a unitary sovereign state in East Asia. With a population of over 1.381 billion, it is the world's most populous country. The state is governed by the Communist Party of China, and its capital is Beijing. It exercises jurisdiction over 22 provinces, five autonomous regions, four direct-controlled municipalities (Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, and Chongqing), and two mostly self-governing special administrative regions (Hong Kong and Macau), and claims sovereignty over Taiwan. The country's major urban areas include Shanghai, Guangzhou, Beijing, Chongqing, Shenzhen, Tianjin and Hong Kong. China is a great power and a major regional power within Asia, and has been characterized as a potential superpower. Korea is a historical state in East Asia, since 1945 divided into two distinct sovereign states: North Korea (officially the "Democratic People's Republic of Korea") and South Korea (officially the "Republic of Korea"). Located on the Korean Peninsula, Korea is bordered by China to the northwest and Russia to the northeast. It is separated from Japan to the east by the Korea Strait and the East Sea. History.
  Until after the Meiji Restoration, the area that is now Niigata Prefecture was divided into Echigo Province (on the mainland) and Sado Province. During the Sengoku period, the Nagao clan, who were at times vassals to the Uesugi, ruled a fief in the western part of modern Niigata from Kasugayama Castle. The most notable member of the Nagao clan was Nagao Kagetora, later and better known as Uesugi Kenshin. He unified the leaders of Echigo Province and became its sole ruler. By taking the surname Uesugi, he also became the head of the Uesugi clan and effectively brought their realm under his control. Russia (from the  Rus'), also officially known as the Russian Federation, is a country in Eurasia. At , Russia is the largest country in the world by surface area, covering more than one-eighth of the Earth's inhabited land area, and the ninth most populous, with over 140 million people at the end of March 2016. The European western part of the country is much more populated and urbanised than the eastern, about 77% of the population live in European Russia. Russia's capital Moscow is one of the largest cities in the world, other major urban centers include Saint Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod and Samara. The Sea of Japan (see below for other names) is a marginal sea between the Japanese archipelago, Sakhalin, and the Asian mainland. The Japanese archipelago separates the sea from the Pacific Ocean. It is bordered by Japan, North Korea, Russia and South Korea. Like the Mediterranean Sea, it has almost no tides due to its nearly complete enclosure from the Pacific Ocean. This isolation also reflects in the fauna species and in the water salinity, which is lower than in the ocean. The sea has no large islands, bays or capes. Its water balance is mostly determined by the inflow and outflow through the straits connecting it to the neighboring seas and Pacific Ocean. Few rivers discharge into the sea and their total contribution to the water exchange is within 1%. Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a state in East Asia. Neighbors include China (officially the People's Republic of China, abbreviated as PRC) to the west, Japan to the northeast, and the Philippines to the south.
  Taiwan is the most populous state that is not a member of the United Nations, and the one with the largest economy. The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south and is bounded by Asia and Australia in the west and the Americas in the east. National Route 460 is a national highway of Japan connecting Shibata , Niigata and Kashiwazaki , Niigata in Japan , with a total length of 120.5 km ( 74.88 mi ) . The Sea of Okhotsk is a marginal sea of the western Pacific Ocean, lying between the Kamchatka Peninsula on the east, the Kuril Islands on the southeast, the island of Hokkaido to the south, the island of Sakhalin along the west, and a long stretch of eastern Siberian coast (the Shantar Sea) along the west and north. The northeast corner is the Shelikhov Gulf. The sea is named after Okhotsk, the first Russian settlement in the Far East. Geography.
  Kashiwazai is located in a coastal region of south-central Niigata Prefecture. Part of the city is within the borders of the Sado-Yahiko-Yoneyama Quasi-National Park. The highest elevation is the summit of Mount Gozu at 912 meters. Japan ("Nippon" or "Nihon" ; formally "" or "Nihon-koku", means "State of Japan") is a sovereign island nation in Eastern Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, It is lying off the eastern coast of the Asia Mainland (east of China, Korea, Russia) and stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and near Taiwan in the southwest. 
candidates: antarctica australia central china chongqing earth east guangzhou gulf japan kamchatka peninsula kuril islands moscow most niigata niigata prefecture north northwest of pacific ocean petersburg philippines republic of china russia sado shibata south south korea southwest taiwan west yekaterinburg
answer: niigata prefecture