Biwako Sosui, built in 1890, is a canal from Lake Biwa to downtown Kyoto for the revitalization of Kyoto.

Kyoto, the capital city of Japan from the 8^th to the 19^th century, quickly declined right after the capital relocation to Tokyo in the 19^th century.  The population of it nearly halved.

As a major countermeasure, the then governor of Kyoto tackled a big public work to build a 20km-long canal to bring water from Lake Biwa to Kyoto.  They planned to utilize the water for the hydropower generation, industries, agriculture and water transport for the locals.  This canal was completed in 1890 after a 5-year construction period and was Japan’s first full-scale public works only by Japanese engineers.  After the completion, the second canal via a tunnel was built in 1912, 100 meters north of the first one in the two photos.  With these two canals, Kyoto largely had a benefit as planned.  Thanks to the electricity, Japan’s first streetcar started to run in Kyoto in 1895.  In this connection, there are many beautiful villas of Japan’s super rich person in Higashiyama area in Kyoto and they necessarily have Japanese garden with central ponds.  The water of the ponds come from Lake Biwa by way of the canals.

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