Yanagawa City is a relatively new city formed in 2005 by the merger of one city and two towns. The city is located in the southwestern part of the Chikugo region in southern Fukuoka Prefecture. The former Yanagawa City and the former Mitsuhashi Town are part of the Fukuoka metropolitan area. Its main industries are agriculture, fishing, and tourism, and it is famous nationwide as a charming waterside town that has produced poets such as Kitahara Hakushu. While the area around Nishitetsu Yanagawa Station functions as a commuter town for Fukuoka City, the castle district of the city, in contrast, has the atmosphere of a castle town. One of the city's tourist attractions is the artificial farmland waterway in the southern Chikushi Plain, which served as the water barrier for Yanagawa Castle during the Sengoku period and became famous as one of Kyushu's most impregnable fortresses.