Sister City

The Sister City relationship, originally between Queanbeyan and Hattamura, was set up in 1992 and student and community visits have gone on every year since 1993. Usually Japanese students come here in August (their summer holidays); and Queanbeyan has been sending students there in our spring holidays (October).

In Japan our students are billeted by the families of junior high school students, often families having had our students over several years. As well as students, there are adult or community visits.

On 1 April 1 2003 Minami-Alps City was formed due to the merger of four towns and two villages including Hatta. The towns and villages that complete Minami-Alps City are Hatta Village, Shirane Town, Ashiyasu Village, Wakakusa Town, Kushigata Town and Kosai Town. Queanbeyan has continued a sister city relationship with Minami-Alps.

About Minami Alps

Minami Alps is a city of about 72,000 set in a basin 100km west of Tokyo, Japan. It is in Yamanashi Prefecture, which is in the centre of the main island of Honshu. The capital of the Prefecture is Kofu, a city of some 200,000 which lies only a few kilometres from Minami Alps, (similar to the Queanbeyan-Canberra situation). About an hours drive south is the sacred Mt Fuji, which dominates the skyline on clear days.

The city dates from 2003 with the amalgamation of a number of villages and towns which lay west of the Kamanashi River and east of the Southern Alps. Included in this was our former Sister City of Hattamura plus towns such as Shirane; Kushigata and Kosai. In October 2004 a delegation led by former Mayor Frank Pangallo visited Minami Alps to sign a new Sister City Agreement. Despite this new arrangement we will still maintain strong links with our many friends in Hattamura.

The climate of Minami Alps is a cold, snowy winter and a warm, humid summer. Student visitors in October will find it late summer, with warm, humid days (23-28 degrees) and mild nights. Showers (and sometimes typhoons) will be common as this is the end of the wetter season. The harvest of the various summer crops such as rice, fruits and grapes will be in full swing.

Students in Minami Alps attend a local primary school (up to age 12) then go on to a junior high school (the equivalent of our Years 7-9). Both these school levels are run by Minami Alps Council. After this students go to a senior high school then college, both run by the Prefecture.