Lake Ezu (江津湖) 江津湖
Spring-fed lake in the city, in two basins; the rare suizenji-nori alga grows in the Kami-Ezu.
The lake is 2.5 kilometres long, covers about 50 hectares and is shaped like a gourd (ひょうたん, hyōtan) because it is made of two basins: the Kami-Ezu upstream and the Shimo-Ezu downstream. It is said to have formed when Katō Kiyomasa, the lord who built Kumamoto Castle, had the Ezu embankment built in the Keichō period (1596–1615) and the spring water collected on the east side. The park's website points out that all the drinking water of Kumamoto's roughly 700,000 inhabitants is groundwater, and that the water gushing up in the Suizenji garden flows towards this lake. The banks have been a park since 1966; in April 2012 management passed from the prefecture to the municipality. On 3 June 2008 the Ministry of the Environment included the springs of Suizenji and Ezu among the ‘hundred waters of the Heisei era’ (平成の名水百選). In the Kami-Ezu grows the alga suizenji-nori (スイゼンジノリ), a rare freshwater alga.
Kumamoto
Shin-Suizenji, Suizenji, [object Object]
