A population of just under eight and a half thousand is a far cry from the late Heian era (around nine hundred years ago) and the Kamakura period when Hiraizumi was the home of the Hiraizumi Fujiwaras, the most powerful clan in Japan, and served as the de facto capital of an area that covered nearly one-third of the country. At that point the population was somewhere between fifty thousand and one hundred thousand, and the city’s cultural and political status almost rivalled the national capital, Kyoto.
Chūson-ji temple was, as far as Hughesy was concerned, a must see. Matsuo Basho went there too…